Because I see the word 'San Shimai' in GL VN Affection with said word remind me of very old VN Three Sisters Story, I made the parody of another old VN localized by JAST, The Sagara Family, by changing 'Sagara' into 'Viscotte' with Viscotte is from the family in Affection, so we have 'The Viscotte Family' as the title. For this week, the main highlight is the updates from Sekai. Other than that, we also have the aforementioned Affection release along with the announcement of the exact release date for several VNs. Overall this week is another below average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Kagura Games announced they'll localized a nukige called Summer Days in the Joyful Countryside with the nukige is from Orcsoft. The VN itself is about an adult who manage to enjoy having sex with his three nieces, and while I don't think the uncle is handsome he definitely is quite capable in the other stuffs (Besides being handsome is not really main requirement to be nukige MC anyway). Speaking of nukige from Orcsoft, we have Cherry Kiss manage to release Succu-Mama on time, and once again the nukige is about the MC who have sex with his new tep mother who turned out to be a succubus. Forgot to mention that Kagura Games already have the exact release date for Yoru ga Kuru, in which they'll release it on May 31st later. We also have the exact release date for two otome VNs, with PQube will release Bustafellows 2 on July 17th later (Also will be available on Steam) and Aksys Games will release Uchronia on September 30th later (Only on Switch).
For the updates from Sekai, we have Wagahigh FD is fully translated and they preparing Harvest Festa for the release with they already edited 90% of it. For the rest of the updates, it's on the engine work with Chiisana Kanojo is 30% done along with it already three quarter edited and Amairo Chocolata 2 is 20% done. There's also some question in regard of Harukuru 18+ version with the employee mention they find some difficulties on the engine working, so it should be very obvious that the plan to release it on Q1 of 2025 is no longer possible. Speaking of 18+ version, currently the team who translate Kiminozo 18+ version already finished with the first pass which according to them is the hardest part. For the next plan, they'll do the editing and playtesting before releasing the patch.
Lastly, we have GL VN Affection released suddenly, and for a bit of history the developer want to make use of the fan translation that they find it online. While at first they find some difficulties on it, with they now be able to release the English version of it obviously they manage to find a way to translate their VN. For Affection, it's about Saya who felt like she can't find a place to where she belong find a job as the maid through her former teacher's acquaintance, and she works in a mansion belong to Viscotte family which consist of three sisters that are younger than Saya. Slowly, Saya find herself to be able to smile after she find herself knows more about her masters. Go get Affection in their Itch.io (It's available for free, although you can donate the developer) if you want to play some GL VN, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
I suppose we can say that 2021 here is the continuation of 2020 in that we're still in the middle of the pandemic, although there's a lot of vaccination right now. Of course, it won't stop the releases of the translated VNs, and it's nice to see that JAST is very aggressive regarding the release in 2021, so much so that it can rival both Mangagamer and Sekai for yearly release numbers. With that done, let's see which translated VNs I chose as the best-rated ones in 2021. I'm sorry if some of your favorites are not here, so you may disagree with my choice because I may be subjective. Lastly, the scores and rank can fluctuate in the future, and for the reminder, the scores are the VNDB score for each VN as of today (May 2nd, 2025).
10. Ren'ai Karichaimashita (VNDB 7.26)
If you look at Sankaku Ren'ai (developed by the same company and localized by Nekonyan), you know what to expect from Karichaimashita here. As a reminder, it's the comedy with a love triangle that's not as dramatic as White Album 2 (WA2), and we'll have it here. Karichaimashita is about our MC, Yuki, who keeps thinking about how money is the only thing that makes his little sister happy, thanks to his family's unique circumstances that forced Yuki to be the family's breadwinner. So, of course, he'll keep working for money if his sister can be happy, so much so that he calls himself having a Sister Complex. One day, Yuki saw a job advertisement for a company that allows clients to have fake relationships; the job is quite common in Japan, as shown in the infamous Kanojo Okarishimasu manga. While the job is highly suspicious, Yuki decides to apply anyway since it offers the high pay he desperately needs. Little did he know back then that he would keep involved with the clients, which in turn allowed him to start a relationship with one of the clients, and here we're going to have four and a half routes because, while technically there are five heroines, two of those heroines are the twin who's sharing Yuki.
9. Primal x Hearts (VNDB 7.35)
Shiravune released several interesting visual novels in 2021, one of those VNs being Marmalade's Primal Hearts series. While it's inevitable because we also have Study Steady (another Marmalade VN) localized by them, it's still nice to see they license the Primal Hearts series. The series features a school with two student councils and an even number of students, thus ensuring a deadlock situation every time a vote happens. The MC's role in the series is as the hope to break the deadlock because he's the 777th student, hence his Three Sevens nickname. So, both councils inevitably approach the MC to persuade him to join one of the councils to have whichever side has the MC win the future votes. While I understand that the second Primal Hearts here has received some improvements, I list the first one here because the Primal Hearts series reminds me of the Lunar series, with both Lunar and Primal Hearts developers improving their second game. So the first Primal Hearts here should make a nice parallel with the first Lunar, and I know it's quite a stretch to compare Lunar and Primal Hearts, seeing that both series have a lot of differences anyway.
8. Sugar * Style (VNDB 7.40)
Compared to other translated Smee VNs (HaremKingdom and Making Lovers) with unique MCs, Sugar Style here didn't have the MC become a king in a different world or already be working. But instead, our MC has just started his college life. For the premise, we have Kazuki (MC's default name), whose parents fled and left him with debts while also being deceived by an evil woman. So, after a string of bad luck, he turns the page by entering the college with the dormitory, which his cousin manages, only to find out that the dormitory is for females. Then Kazuki accidentally stumbles into a perverted situation. Thus, his relationship with the female residents, the heroines, has a rocky start. However, as per Smee VN, Kazuki will gradually get closer to the heroines. He'll then enter a relationship with one of the four heroines in the original version (which Nekonyan localized) and with the two additional heroines, including Kazuki's cousin, in the untranslated console version (that does not have sex scenes). Like other Smee VNs, besides obviously still having the usual comedy, it also has a mini fan disc, but we don't know if Nekonyan will localize it.
7. Dohna Dohna -Issho ni Warui Koto o Shiyou- (VNDB 7.89)
After Shiravune brought the Primal Hearts series in July 2021, we have Dohna Dohna as another exciting license released by them in October 2021. Dohna Dohna, as in the latest gameplay VN by Alicesoft, which, as we know, is attempting to localize Evenicle 2 on their own (so perhaps Shiravune will localize Evenicle 2 later), as well as having a partnership with Mangagamer to localize the Rance series. For Dohna Dohna itself, while the graphic style resembles Persona 5, the story is more similar to FF7. In the story of Dohna Dohna, it has an outlaw group that lives in a city tightly controlled by a massive corporation. The group does everything it can, including robbing the facility related to the corporation, to fight them. While we usually think that the group is in the right, in this case, we can't exactly say that the group is better than the corporation morally because we have the group kidnapping several women to sell them as prostitutes to get money. Finally, while the graphics are quite colorful, it should go without saying that the content is quite dark, especially with the already mentioned prostitute and some disturbing sex scenes in the Bad Endings.
6. Rance Quest (VNDB 7.96)
After some time of waiting (11 years for the ones who play fan translations of Sengoku Rance and 17 months for the ones who play the Mangagamer version), we finally have Rance Quest released in English. As for the story, after Rance encountered a problem in Sengoku Rance, he decided to find a way to resolve his situation. Of course, Rance being Rance, his inability to control his libido caused trouble, and he's been struck with a curse by a woman with whom he had sex. Said curse renders any woman who has sex with Rance weakened, as well as making Rance not able to have sex with weaker women, so there will be many restrictions on Rance's having sex. Facing the situation, rather than trying to find a way to remove the curse quickly, Rance decided to enjoy his life as much as possible. Of course, he'll do so by searching for many strong women so that he can have sex with them. Rance Quest is the eighth part of the Rance series that Alicesoft developed, and it's the breather episode with Rance doing a lot of quests that resemble the old RPG (hence the word "Quest"). For the video, because Rance Quest didn't have the opening, I'll use its PV video.
5. Musicus (VNDB 8.00)
When Overdrive worked on this VN, which was planned as their last VN before they went with the Virtual Youtuber stuff, they found themselves without enough funds to develop the VN. So, they did the crowdfund to get the funds, and as a result, they managed to gather 130 million yen. According to what I've seen, Musicus has been well received, with some calling it a thought-provoking VN if we borrow the late Conjueror's word, though whether that's true is up to each person. But I know for sure that in Musicus, we have Kei, who is currently in a dilemma regarding his future after encountering the difficulties of becoming a doctor like his father. Of course, as per Overdrive MC, Kei finds himself drawn to the music after watching a concert. From there, he does his best to perform in a band after being suggested by a band leader. Unlike the writer's previous Overdrive VN, which also focused on the music band (Kira Kira), in this one, the writer shows what would happen if one made a band for a living, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. Since Musicus didn't have an opening, I'll use the ending credit of Yako's route for the video below.
4. Kin'iro Loveriche (VNDB 8.18)
Kini'iro Loveriche, aka Kinkoi, is the first translated Saga Planet VN that Nekonyan localized. With that, we finally have Saga Planet VN translated, which defies people's belief that it's impossible to see it happen, especially with several failed Saga Planet VN translation projects we've had in the past (Hanasaki Work Spring, Hatsuyuki Sakura). As for Kinkoi, the premise here is that Ouro carried Princess Sylvie (her full name is too long) in Princess Carry (how appropriate), which obviously would alert her bodyguards because it made Ouro look like he had kidnapped the princess. Since Ouro himself caught Sylvie's attention, she had arranged for Ouro to attend the school with her. While the premise suggested that this is just a comedy VN with rich people as heroines, it turned out that there's more to Kinkoi than meets the eye, particularly regarding the story of one of the heroines. The VN also has a fan disc, Golden Time, with two routes for the side heroines, after stories for each heroine (including the side one), and an alternate ending for a specific heroine. Just in case you're asking if the fan disc will be licensed or not, Nekonyan has already licensed it, and so far, the translation work on it is going pretty well.
3. 9 -Nine- Yukiiro Yukihana Yukinoato (VNDB 8.59)
I said the serial release is not ideal for releasing a VN. But after I read one of the reviews about Nine, perhaps going serial here is the best way to make the writer, Kazuki Fumi, build up the story arc because not all writers can make the complete story arc from the beginning. That said, I'm still not a fan of serial release. In Episode 4, after Kakeru gets close to the other heroines, Miyako, Sora, and Haruka, in the previous episodes while investigating the incidents in the city, this time Kakeru gets close to Noa. More importantly, Kakeru finally confronts a person who's been causing the incidents after getting some help from an unexpected fellow. While there's Shinshou, aka New Episode, which is said to be the sequel to Episode 4, the New Episode is more like the fan disc than the sequel. The New Episode contents are the after stories for the heroines with some wrap-up for the story, so Episode 4 here is the grand finale for the Nine series itself. Izumi Tsubasu is still in charge of the design, so we still have her beautiful drawings. Sekai did well on this by releasing four episodes of Nine within two years, contrasting with when they needed three years to release two VN of the ReLord trilogy.
2. Soukou Akki Muramasa (VNDB 8.95)
We knew JAST got the license for Muramasa back in 2012 when one of TLWiki's users, Makoto, became the translator for JAST. JAST being JAST, we didn't see them give us many updates on Muramasa, so people decided to give up on it. At least until July 2021, when JAST abruptly announced that Muramasa would be released shortly, and with their new pace, JAST did manage to release it in August 2021. For the premise, we have an alternative world where Japan (ruled by the Rokuhara shogunate with an iron fist and has unique warriors called musha) has a roaming monster that terrorizes the country by killing many people. Enter Kageaki with his eyes set on it, and then he hunts it down. While usually, we would say that Kageaki is the hero, one should remember the arc word, "This is not a story of the heroes." So, of course, Kageaki will make many horrible decisions to achieve the goal. Since the writer, Narahara Ittetsu, did write both Hanachirasu and Muramasa, with the former having a lot of deaths, sure enough, Muramasa has tons of people dying left and right. Besides that, Narahara here also provides some writing that can be thought-provoking.
1. White Album 2 (VNDB 9.01)
I still remember in 2011 when my roommate listened to the WA2 Closing Chapter opening, and obviously, there was no translated version of it back then. The Todokanai group worked hard to translate WA2, but it took years to finish because of its length. After several years of work, they finally released the full translation patch on December 22nd of last year (2021), making it a nice early Christmas gift from them. For the premise, we have Haruki, who is searching for additional light music club members to perform at the school festival. He manages to get two girls, Setsuna and Kazusa, to participate. Haruki had no idea at the time that he would become embroiled in a dramatic love triangle that would last into his adulthood, and it would be pretty messy, given that each involved person had numerous flaws. WA2 here is Maruto Fumiaki's last VN before he moves on to write the light novel (Saekano). As I said, Maruto wrote each character like in Damekoi, but he focused more on two heroines (Setsuna and Kazusa) instead of just one like in Damekoi (Mitoko). As for the video, I used the Closing Chapter opening because the VNDB page of this used to be the page for the Closing Chapter VNDB entry.
That's all for my list of translated visual novels released in 2021. To conclude, 2021 is pretty much an exciting year, with two of the most well-received VNs (Muramasa and WA2) getting translated so we can finally play them in English. Lastly, with JAST's new strategy, which is to release the download version first to quicken the releases, I look forward to what they can do in 2022. Of course, I also look forward to what the other companies can do in 2022, especially regarding Nekonyan and Shiravune, seeing both of them manage to release several interesting visual novels in 2021.
PS - For the title, I combined the words "winter" (the WA2 season motif) and "musha" (the unique warrior in Muramasa), resulting in "The Winter Musha," which is similar to one of Captain America's films (The Winter Soldier).
In 2022, the pandemic was starting to subside, so after two years of absence, we finally had conventions with several new VNs translation announcements. Of course, we still have translated VN releases, so I'll list the best-rated translated VNs in 2022. Once again, I may be subjective, so I'm sorry if some of your favorite VNs are not here, and feel free to disagree with my choice. Anyway, let's see the best translated VNs in 2022 that I chose here, and of course, the rank and the score can change in the future. For the scores, I'll use today's (May 11th, 2025) scores for each VN.
10. Evenicle 2 (VNDB 7.36)
There's a drama behind the Evenicle 2 release because of the censorship on the trial version that removes the first sex scene. The censorship is not much help to add this on Steam anyway, thanks to a random ban from Valve. For the game, I thought it was an unnecessary sequel at first. However, after I played the trial, I found myself liking this. Of course, most people would understandably see this as inferior compared to the prequel, especially with no changes in the gameplay besides the healing system and skill gain, which are not much better than the prequel. For the premise, Alex, an apprentice doctor in a world with a deadly pandemic, heard the news of a beautiful girl getting sick. Because he's as pervert as Aster (the prequel MC), Alex starts to examine the patient, which leads him to discover that he can cure the beautiful female patient through sexual intercourse thanks to his hidden ability (I'm not making up the premise). After seeing the effect of the treatment, Alex concluded that his ability might be the key to eradicating the pandemic. Then he went to get his doctor's license, and while on the trip, he found himself treating several more beautiful female patients.
9. Ouchi ni Kaeru made ga Mashimaro Desu (VNDB 7.40)
After Shiravune localized both Primal Hearts and Study Steady, they went to localized one more VN from Marmalade, Mashimaro (localized as Marshmallow All the Way Home), so currently, we have four VNs from Marmalade (including Primal Hearts 2) translated by Shiravune. In Mashimaro, our MC, Ryou, becomes homeless after being chased out of his former house and forced to sleep in the park. One day, he met with a friendly, beautiful girl who fed him sweets and then introduced herself as Kanon. Being grateful, Ryou followed Kanon to her bakery, Marshmallow Tree, which was almost out of business because of a change in the opening hour and the arrival of a famous competitor nearby. As the responsible person, Ryou returned the favor by helping Kanon revitalize Marshmallow Tree by working as a part-timer there. It turned out that he was pretty competent, so he managed to make Marshmallow Tree successful quickly. Even though Kanon is the apparent main heroine (as shown in the beginning), Ryou can date another girl besides her. While Mashimaro here has a sweet and lighthearted story, it also has several lengthy sex scenes in the heroine's routes.
8. Otome * Domain (VNDB 7.43)
Shiravune manages to localize the Otome Domain, in that it's one of the known trap VN besides Otoboku and Tsuki no Yorisou. By the way, I added this based on my interest in the VN with trap MC. While the VNDB lists the connection with Boku to Koi Suru Ponkotsu Akuma (Koikuma), it's only for the trial version. But, since the heroines are the same as in Koikuma for being useless, we may call this Koikuma with the young ladies. In Otome Domain, we have the MC, Minato, who recently lost his grandmother, leaving him alone. At the funeral, a young lady, Kazari, offers Minato to take care of his needs. Said offer included enrolling Minato into the school that Kazari runs as the board chairwoman. However, Minato must cross-dress as a girl since the school is an all-girls school, and he manages to look as good as a girl, much to his dismay. After coming into the school, Minato finds out that Kazari has some quirk that makes her useless, and his dormmates also have some quirks that make them problematic. Having no choice, Minato decides to take care of their problem, which makes him ironically more feminine than the girls who enrolled in the school.
7. Cafe Stella to Shinigami no Chou (VNDB 7.54)
Yuzusoft finally decided to make a VN revolve around a cafe after featuring it several times in their previous VNs with Cafe Stella. When Cafe Stella was about to be released in Japan, Yuzusoft provided several 4-Koma videos featuring each heroine (including the side one). Said videos have English captions, which should indicate that Cafe Stella will be localized. Sure enough, Nekonyan announced they'd localize Cafe Stella in 2020 before finally releasing it in March 2022 as the 5th officially translated Yuzusoft VN (which includes Parquet, even though it is just the experimental work). For the premise, we have our MC Kousei encounter a cute grim reaper, Kanna, after he somehow turned back into the past because of an accident that supposedly killed him, and Kanna tells Kousei that he's still not free from his grim fate yet. So Kousei decided to accept Kanna's offer to help her, as he had worked with Kanna to open the titular Cafe Stella. The story of Cafe Stella combines the supernatural (Kanna and her grim reaper work) and slice-of-life (obviously the cafe). Lastly, I can say that the waitress uniform looks nice, with the color scheme resembling the waitress uniform in Blend S.
6. Hello Lady (VNDB 7.56)
I admit that my initial interest in Hello Lady was because of the VAs, of which two, Eri Sendai and Yamamura Hibiku, were voicing Precure. Even without looking at those VAs, the VN is already well known. Many people wish to have this VN translated, although no company was willing to get the license until Nekonyan announced this in 2018. Afterward, it took more than 40 months before the release because the developer, Akatsuki Works, needed time to develop the engine for the complete edition (which includes the FD and an additional ending from the PSV version). After a long wait, we have Hello Lady release in January 2022. For the premise, we have Narita, who has been invited to The Academy as a transfer student by the chairman, rescue the kidnapped student council president Saku while also deciding to be daring by grabbing Saku's breast. Of course, Saku was furious about that, especially with Narita joining the council. While initially Narita is presented as a breast lover, actually Narita himself has come to the school with his hidden goal in mind, and he may find himself finding out that there's something more regarding his said goal.
5. Amatsutsumi (VNDB 7.79)
For some reason, Valve banned Amatsutsumi on Steam, thus making Sekai need to delay the release for a while before finally releasing it on the other platforms. While we can think of several reasons why Valve banned this, such as high school settings and the MC (Makoto) having sex with more than one girl, only Valve can answer that. In Amatsutsumi, we have Makoto, who lives in an isolated village and is already engaged. He wanted to set the journey to see the outside world because of his intense longing, so he started to do so. But then, he collapsed in the nearby town because he didn't prepare enough before leaving the village. After being saved by a passerby, Kokoro, Makoto uses his power to brainwash Kokoro through a word to make her think of Makoto as Kokoro's older brother. Then, Makoto decided to live with Kokoro's family as the first step to living as a regular human instead of someone with superpowers. Some days after, Makoto encounters a girl, Hotaru, who is immune to his power. After talking with Hotaru, Makoto promises to help the other by using his power. He will do so with all the heroines, who each have their circumstances.
4. Chaos Head Noah (VNDB 7.89)
Technically, this is a redundant release because we already have the Chaos Head translation patch from 2009, and Noah is mostly the same. That said, the developer added some new content, such as routes and a new opening, so we can consider it a new release despite several problems with the English releases, such as the ban by Valve before it got revoked and a high number of bugs. This release is significant as Noah is the very first VN of the Science Adventure series, and with this, now we have all translated Science Adventure VN available on Steam. For the premise, we have our loser MC Nishijou Takumi, an otaku who rarely leaves his room on the rooftop except to go to school occasionally. One day, he heard a rumor that a serial murder had happened around his premises in Shibuya. Since Nitroplus developed the original Chaos Head, the murders were very disturbing. After somehow stumbling upon one of the serial murder sites, Takumi encounters a cute girl with a lot of blood on her body, and naturally, he's frightened. After that, one way or another, Takumi finds himself in the middle of a serial murder case, which leads him to get dragged into it.
3. Tokeijikake no Ley Line -Asagiri ni Chiru Hana- (VNDB 8.15)
Compared to the 51-month gap between the Tokeijikake trilogy's first and second part releases, the second and last part releases are only eight months apart. It helps that Sekai and the developer had already ironed out the buggy engine by the time the second part was available in March 2022, so they didn't need to wait too long to release the whole trilogy. As for the premise of the entire trilogy, it started with our MC Koga attending the mysterious magical school located in a remote area. Sometime after entering the school, Koga accidentally breaks a quite expensive statue. Unfortunately, Koga has no money to compensate for it. To have Koga take responsibility for the broken statue, the principal paired him with the head of the Bureau for the Investigation of Special Affairs, Ushio (the main heroine of the Tokeijikake trilogy). Said Bureau is responsible for investigating magic-related incidents in the school, and eventually, the Bureau would investigate the massive incident in the last part. Since both Koga and Ushio here are pretty stubborn, the meeting between those two ended in bad blood. Of course, both of them would develop their relationship throughout the trilogy.
2. Hakuchuumu no Aojashin (VNDB 8.51)
Around the time when the English version of Aojashin was released, several headache-inducing shenanigans happened. Those shenanigans are the writer's "smooth" way of addressing the censorship critic, the license problem for another Laplacian VN, and the setting change for the high school student heroine into a college student. While the English version here obviously didn't have 18+ contents because of the censorship, thankfully, a fan team worked hard to restore the removed contents and revert the change for the school student heroine. In Aojashin, we have a combination of Fata Morgana and Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V. The latter is because Laplacian used their previous VNs setting into Aojashin here, and ARC V did the same. Story-wise, it's closer to Fata Morgana because it and Aojashin have three initial stories/cases that converge into one main arc. Other similarities are that both have white-haired girls involved in the story, and that's where the similarities end. Unlike in Fata Morgana, where you start from the first story, in Aojashin, you'll randomly start in one of three initial cases. For the video, I'll use the Case 0 opening because Case 0 is the main arc of Aojashin itself.
1. Mahoutsukai no Yoru (VNDB 8.65)
After watching Evangelion, a man was getting inspiration to write a novel. However, the publisher rejected the novel because of its length. Some years later, after the man had been successful with Fate/Stay Night, he revisited his old novel. Yes, that man is Kinoko Nasu, and his old novel is Mahoyo with the full title Mahoutsukai no Yoru (literally translated as "A Magician's Night"). For the premise, we have Aoko (who, as we know, is Shiki's teacher in Tsukihime) suddenly chosen to become the head of a magician family, so naturally, she's underprepared. To prepare herself, she lives with the young witch Alice in her mansion to get some magic lessons. After some time, Aoko's classmate, Soujuurou, witnesses the duo using magic. Seeing no other choice, they force Soujuurou to live in the mansion. While the premise sounds like a slice-of-life story (and to be fair, it is), being a Type-Moon VN, there will be some battles with beautiful effects. Initially, Nasu planned Mahoyo to be the trilogy. But seeing that Nasu is still busy with FGO and promised to work on the sequels after he finishes with the Tsukihime remake (which only has the first half released in August 2021), it better not expect the sequels to be released soon.
Overall, 2022 still has some good releases, even though they're not as big as 2021. That said, I felt that some of the exciting releases concentrated on the fan discs, which, while it's not bad per se, I would prefer to see more exciting releases for the main title here. Anyway, now that we're in 2023 here, I hope we see more nice releases, especially from Nekonyan. Of course, I still want to see if JAST can keep their release pace, even with them sometimes releasing the Remaster of their old VNs. Lastly, while I don't know if I can look forward to Mangagamer and Sekai's new title, I hope they can release some interesting VNs.
PS - Since we have William Shakespeare in Aojashin, I allude to his play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, by changing "Night's Dream" into "Magician's Night" (because Mahoyo release), so we have "A Midsummer Magician's Night" as the title.
Welcome to my list of best-rated translated visual novels in 2023, with the world back to normal after the pandemic. Of course, we still have several translated VN releases, even though the title is not as big as in several past years. But if anything else, seeing Mahoyo being available on Steam means Type-Moon showed an interest in releasing their translated VN on PC, which is quite interesting. Also, I'm sorry if some of your favorite VNs are not on the list because I may be a bit subjective when making this list. As for the rule, the translation must be considered complete by VNDB as of today, May 11th, 2025, and the score for each VN is the score on VNDB today. Oh yes, I almost forgot to say the scores could change in the future.
10. Kunado Kokuki (VNDB 7.38)
I already guess Purple Software has a plan to add translated Kunado in Steam by reducing the number of sex scenes to almost less than half on either Amatsutsumi or Aoi Tori. This time, Purple Software asked Shiravune to localize the game, which makes Purple Software work with four publishers. Even with fewer sex scenes, Shiravune still cut one route for the Steam version before the release. The setting for Kunado is around 1,000 years in the future, with Tekki (the metal that becomes sentient) roaming across the Earth and attacking humanity. Tekki also caused further problems by corrupting all kinds of metal, so humanity had no choice but to revert the civilization to ancient Japan and reduce their numbers. Even so, the humans didn't give up, so they fought against the strongest Tekki and won after one big war with the loss of the strongest warrior. A hundred days after the big war, the amnesiac man (the MC) who knows the civilization from 1,000 years ago woke up from cryogenic sleep. Seeing that humans didn't have any other knowledge besides warfare, the amnesiac MC decided to teach the humans the knowledge to rebuild the civilization.
9. Walkure Romanze ~Shoujo Kishi Monogatari~ (VNDB 7.55)
In 2011, Ricotta released Walkure Romanze after being successful with Princess Lover. Like Princess Lover, Walkure Romanze has a high-class setting, although they also add jousting sport. While Ricotta themselves is not as famous as Minato-soft, at least they still manage to get some anime VA to voice the characters in Walkure Romanze, such as Shitaya Noriko and Uchiyama Yumi. Ricotta also did their best on the graphic, which made Walkure get the Best Graphic award from Getchu in 2011. In 2012, a fan was interested in translating Walkure Romanze, although the project was going nowhere, so there's no hope of seeing the translation of Walkure Romanze if not for a 4chan user who decided to work on it back in 2021. After two years of effort, we finally see the full translation patch for Walkure Romanze available in August 2023. For the VN, it's about Takahiro, a prodigy in jousting, although he has an accident that forced him to retire. Even so, he still works on jousting as the begleiter (assistant). Being former athletes, many aspiring jousting athletes want his assistance. So obviously, we're going to see Takahiro help the athletes and see his romance blooming while at it.
8. Anonymous Code (VNDB 7.56)
I admit that initially, I thought MAGES did milk Steins Gate again when they made this, especially with the staff saying it has the same setting as Steins Gate. After I see more of the game, I think at least it's not just blatantly milking Steins Gate. Anonymous Code is the sixth Science Adventure VN, and it had six times rewrites. The premise is the hacker MC, Pollon, says he wants to elope with a cute girl, only to have his friend dismiss him. One day, he saw his imaginary girl, Momo, in danger. Being the nice guy and engaged with Momo in his mind, Pollon tries to save Momo even though it's dangerous. Then, Pollon finds the strange app that allows him to Save and Load. Yes, Save and Load like in the video games. So, Pollon use the app to find a safer way to rescue Momo. After escaping the danger, Pollon finds many dangerous people who want to capture Momo, so Pollon decides to do his best to fight the chaser using the mysterious app. Anonymous Code didn't have character routes, which may be good if someone has a problem with the character routes. It also has the English dub, unlike past Science Adventure VNs, so it has the usual translated video game feel.
7. Clover Day's (VNDB 7.66)
In 2014, Astro wanted to express his love for this VN, so he established a translation project for it. Time passed, and it was going well until he had to stop his translation activities in 2018. In 2020, Nekonyan announced this as one of their licenses, with the new translator, Ittaku, working on it. Unfortunately, it was not smooth sailing, seeing Valve decide to ban the VN. In 2023, Hikari Field submitted the heavily edited VN to Valve, and they finally accepted it. Afterward, Nekonyan released this in August 2023. The setting for this VN is nothing special, especially if we compare it to the other Alcot VNs, such as My Girlfriend is the President or Tokyo Hero Project. The premise is about Yuuto, a half-Japanese who spent his time in an orphanage in England. One day, a businessman from Japan picked Yuuto as his stepson. At first, Yuuto had difficulties getting along with the other children, but then he managed to do so. Ten years after Yuuto came to Japan, Yuuto started to experience romance with one of his childhood friends. I forgot to mention the staff showed their interest in twin heroines, with four heroines being two pairs of twin siblings.
6. Nukige Mitai na Shima ni Sunderu Watashi wa Dou Surya Ii Desu ka (VNDB 7.85)
Back in 2020, Nukitashi was almost ready to be released in English, only for the chance to blow up thanks to the publisher issue. Thankfully, Shiravune did pick this title, and now we managed to have Nukitashi in English. It's also worth noting that Shiravune cut most of the content for the Steam version, resulting in the Steam version having less than an hour of gameplay, which is quite extreme but understandable if we see how Valve banning works. In Nukitashi, we have the MC Junnosuke return to his hometown in Seiran. When he came back, he saw his hometown turned from a backwater town into a sex paradise thanks to the law that allow people to have sex whenever they want. While this sounds good on paper, he feels that there's something wrong with the state of his hometown, especially when it becomes a police state with civil servants forcing people to have sex. To fight back against the situation, Junnosuke revolts against the system while backed by a mysterious sponsor. As it turned out, Nukitashi's focus is not really on sex like the title suggests (nukige meant sex-focused VN), but instead on the deconstruction of the setting that allows the people to have sex as much as possible.
5. Tokyo Necro (VNDB 7.90)
After Muramasa and Totono, in 2016, Nitroplus released Tokyo Necro with them experimenting with it, notably showing the fight in 3D animation. In Tokyo Necro, the world in 2199 facing the second Ice Age and still reeling from the most terrible war. As if the situation is not bad enough, there are living dead (also known as zombies) roaming in the open, and some people capable of making the zombies do their bidding called Necromancers. Thus, we had two protagonists, Souun and Ethica, working hard fighting the zombies. Even though both are capable of combating the living dead and have an interest in women, both have many differences, such as fighting style, personalities, and gender (Souun is male while Ethica is female). One day, Souun and Ethica do a mission to rescue the VIP person kidnapped by one of the Necromancers. After fighting against the Necromancer, Souun finds the mysterious girl who forgot everything except her name, Ilia. Afterward, both Souun and Ethica started to search for information about Ilia while investigating more about the Necromancer they fought. Eventually, their investigation uncovered multiple secrets connected to Ilia and the world around them.
4. Meikei no Lupercalia (VNDB 8.16)
In the past, I saw a post about voice acting in Lupercalia, so I read the post. Of course, I did hear the sample of the voice acting, and the VA went all out to voicing the character (said character is supposed to be the best actress in the setting, Orihara Hyouko). With good voice acting, I thought it could be good to have it translated, although I knew there was almost no chance back then unless a publisher somehow decided to pick the license. However, one fan decided to take the job of translating the VN alone. After months of hard work, he released the full translation patch with the English title Lupercalia of the Silent Accord. In Lupercalia, we have Tamaki, formerly a child theater actor who quit acting, invited to see Lampyris Troupe performing Hamlet. Curious, he watched it and found out the performance was good. Afterward, Tamaki tried to enter the troupe with his childhood friend, Futaba, only to find out they must pass a test by doing a play. Seeing Tamaki still has cold feet from acting, he took the director's role to direct Futaba's first play. For the VN itself, there'll be some harsh stories about the theatre and how it'll affect the people in it, for better or worse.
3. Tsui no Stella (VNDB 8.22)
Tsui no Stella is one of KEY VN. For information, while their more famous work is quite lengthy, they also like to make several short VNs, with those VNs usually having robot characters (a trend they started way back in 2004 with Planetarian). This work is not different from those short VN, with the single heroine, Philia, being an android. The premise for Tsui no Stella is Jude, the MC, is the Courier who worked a dangerous job as the delivery man to deliver the cargo. As for why the job is a dangerous one, it's because Jude lives in a world where humanity is almost extinct with the machines roaming around. One day, Jude received a request to deliver some unusual cargo, and that cargo was Philia, an android who is not hostile to humans. After Jude met with Philia, Philia decided to ask Jude to escort her to the place where she could turn into a human. Seeing no choice, Jude decided to deliver her to her goal. In the journey, Jude and Philia develop their relationship, although in this case, it would be like father and daughter rather than in a romantic sense. The writer for this VN is Tanaka Romeo, who also wrote one of the long KEY VNs, Rewrite.
2. Rance IX - Helman Kakumei (VNDB 8.31)
Unlike when there was an 11-year gap between Sengoku Rance and Rance Quest English version releases, we only have a two-year gap between Rance Quest and Rance IX releases, so good job for Mangagamer. For Rance IX's premise, our selfish Rance goes to Helman to seek the secret item in Helman's Royal Treasure. However, seeing Helman is in turmoil, there's no way for Rance to get it. Enter Patton, the former prince of Helman, asking for help from Rance to start the revolutionary army. Rance agrees with some conditions that he must be the one who leads the revolution and has the freedom to have sex with as many girls as possible. Patton agrees with Rance's conditions, and from there, both start to change Helman with revolution. In Rance IX, Alicesoft decided to rehash the gameplay from one of their older VN, Mamatoto (translated by the same translator, Arunaru), with both VNs having several similar soundtracks. Rance IX is the penultimate game of the Rance series, with Alicesoft writing up how Rance will take care of the problems in the oldest human country before going all out to wage war against the Monster Army in Rance X.
1. Tsukihime -A Piece of Blue Glass Moon- (VNDB 8.82)
In 1999, Nasu made a VN with the vampire heroine (Arcueid) called Tsukihime. Seeing that he was still new, he didn't have a big publisher to back him up, so he could only sell it at Comiket in 2000. In 2008, Nasu announced his plan to remake Tsukihime and started its development in 2012. Soon after, Nasu was busy with Fate/Grand Order, so much so that the development halted in 2013. The work resumed in 2017, which still needs some years to finish because Nasu decided to insert new ideas into the remake as much as possible. Finally, after all of years in development, in 2021, we see the release, but only for the first part because the second part is still in development. The premise for Tsukihime is the same no matter which version, with Shiki (who can see the death) murdering Arcueid by impulse. Afterward, Shiki sees Arcueid revived because she's a vampire, and then Arcueid asks Shiki to help her fight because she's weakened after being revived. We had the fan translation patch released first before Aniplex announced this at AX, which made the Aniplex version redundant, especially since they don't say it'll have the PC version (it is only available on Switch).
That's all for my list of translated visual novels released in 2023. Overall, what I can say last 2023 is more or less the same as 2022, only with no exciting fan disc release. I can say that Shiravune is getting more aggressive with the releases, even though most of their 2023 catalog is not exciting to me, so I hope they'll get more good work in 2024, together with Nekonyan. Mangagamer does release some good titles, with JAST still at their usual pace, and let's say that I hope Sekai will get the better title in 2024. So yeah, I'll wait and see regarding those three publishers, and hopefully, they can bring some surprises.
PS - Seeing we have Tsukihime Remake, I parodied the most known work from the author, Fate/Stay Night, by changing "Stay" into "Twilight" with the latter from the Twilight saga (and because both Tsukihime and Twilight saga have vampires), and also I changing "Night" into "Revolution" with it is from Rance IX English title, The Helmanian Revolution, resulting "Fate/Twilight Revolution" as the title.
For 2024, the first half is exciting, with several releases of known classics such as Kanon and Mashiro-iro Symphony. However, it slowed down in the latter half before the pace picked up again in December 2024. Anyway, as usual, I'll list the VNs that were translated in 2024. Of course, I may be subjective when I choose the VNs, so I'm sorry if your favorite VNs are not on my list. Like my past lists, the ranking and the scores of each visual novel can change in the future. For the info, the scores and the ranking of the VNs below will be according to the VNDB scores for each VN today (May 11th, 2025).
10. Kakenuke Seishun Sparking (VNDB 7.52)
Saga Planets tried to bring the lighthearted VN in 2020, and the result of the attempt is Kakenuke Seishun Sparking, or Forward to Our Sparking Youth in English, which Nekonyan uses as the subtitle. In Kakenuke, we have a young male MC, Tono Yuu, who was left alone with his younger sister by his parents. Left with no choice, Yuu became the provider for the family while he needed to study to get a scholarship at school, leaving him very exhausted every day. On top of that, his situation left him bitter, and he could only think about money instead of having fun. Seeing Yuu's situation, his nearest people are worried about him, so two of his friends, Hibiki and Riri, relentlessly recruit him to their respective clubs, with both clubs having the mission to enjoy youth in their ways. Of course, being money-minded, Yuu was hesitant to join the club because he needed to do his part-time job. Yet, Yuu will get involved in the club's activities despite his initial hesitation. For Kakenuke, while Saga Planets successfully brings lighthearted VN focusing on daily life in an ordinary setting, they still have some knack for writing the dramatic story, as seen in some parts.
9. Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana (VNDB 7.66)
Back in 2023, someone established a fan translation group called Shinzou Translations. At first, most of their works were short and free VNs, such as Rinkaiten no Azrael and Nagi no Koi, before they worked on translating Karenai Sekai. Karenai Sekai is the first game from the developer, Sweet & Tea, which is quite ironic given the remaining VNs from the developer (Kemono Musume and Nekogami-sama) translated by Sekai Project. For the premise of Karenai Sekai, we have a young man, Shou, who travels with the little girl, Ren. One day, they arrive at a town full of flowers. Soon after, they meet with the sisters, Kotose, Haru, and Yukina, who open a cafe, and then Shou agrees to work there in exchange for a bed to sleep in. In the middle of the night, Shou saw the middle sister, Haru, going outside, and he followed her to the hill full of flowers. There, Shou saw Haru embracing a little girl, and afterward, the little girl turned into a flower. Knowing Shou saw her, Haru says she has her circumstances, and Shou can only respond he'll keep praying for the world to end. The game tone is quite somber, which is quite a departure from the writer's previous work, with said work being the well-known Nekopara.
8. Aoi Tori (VNDB 7.68)
Aoi Tori was announced in 2021 by Nekonyan, which made Purple Software work with three publishers at that time. While the translation and editing work went without much problem, Nekonyan found troubles with the engine work. Eventually, Purple Software felt the work was too long, so they asked Nekonyan to release Aoi Tori by April 2024, or the license would revoked. Seeing no choice, Nekonyan did their best to comply with the request by canceling the engine work and releasing the game in English, with the Steam version released in June 2024 because Valve rejected the initial build for the Steam version of Aoi Tori. Aoi Tori is about Ritsu, who lives as a priest in an all-girl Catholic school in the middle of nowhere. He has the power to give positive emotions over sex, so he occasionally gets asked for sex by desperate students, making him a little more than a gigolo. One day in his plain life, after he had sex with the desperate student, he somehow got a call from the devil. After the call, Ritsu encounters the cheerful 99-year-old vampire girl, Mary, who says she's back to her former house where Ritsu resides. From there, Ritsu's life starts to get more lively.
7. Amazing Grace -What Color is Your Attribute- (VNDB 7.69)
While Cabbage Soft produces Amairo Chocolate to compete with Nekopara, they also made several plot-focused VNs, one of which is Amazing Grace (available in English thanks to Shiravune). While the heroines look cute courtesy of Korie Riko as the artist, it has more than cute character designs, especially the story. The story is about Shuu, who has amnesia and stumbled into the town in the post-apocalypse world. The place itself has some peculiar situations, with the most important thing is the people were going all out to put the focus on art. Regardless, Shuu enjoys his life. At the start of Advent, Shuu and Yune (one of the heroines) eat the strange apples, which in the long run helps them a lot, seeing the town destroyed by the explosions at Christmas, with the apples giving them time travel ability to the Advent's beginning. So, with his time travel power, Shuu makes full use of it to save the town. After using the powers and failing to prevent the explosions several times, Shuu finally finds the town's secret together with his memories. While the story may not satisfy everyone, at least Amazing Grace has interesting talk about art and how to appreciate it.
6. Mashiro-iro Symphony (VNDB 7.71)
In 2009, Palette hired Izumi Tsubasu to do the art for their newest VN, Mashiro Iro Symphony, and her art is pretty good-looking. Afterward, Palette released the PSP version, and then it received an anime adaptation in 2012 with Kawamura Toshie (one of the Precure character designers) responsible for its beautiful art. In 2023, Palette decided to remake Mashiro Iro while at the same time also remaking the route for Sana (fan favorite character) from the PSP version, and somehow selling both the remake and Sana's route separately despite almost no reason to do so. A year after that, Shiravune localized the remake along with Sana Edition, and they released it with the English version keeping the Sprite Viewer feature, which is nice because somehow that feature was omitted in the other translated Palette's VNs (Nine series, Saku Saku, Otome Domain) despite no engine change. The story is quite simple; it's about the MC Shingo, who is about to attend an all-girls school that soon faces a merger. However, his road was not smooth sailing because the female students resisted the change. Still, Shingo tried his best to have a good relationship with the female students, and eventually, he managed to get close to them.
5. Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (VNDB 7.79)
Before the Muv Luv franchise, Age had Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, aka Kiminozo, which they made in 2001 before they made the anime adaptation in 2003. While the anime saw some success overseas, it took them 20 years before they finally managed to release Kiminozo VN on Steam with English language support, and even then, they cut the sex scenes. While I know the main focus is the story, I understand if people complain about the sex scenes removal. Anyway, in Kiminozo, we have a group of friends, with three of them (Takayuki, Haruka, and Mitsuki) involved in a love triangle. Things get messier when Haruka becomes in a coma after an accident, and Mitsuki, who already fell in love with Takayuki, decides to take the chance to go out with Takayuki despite Mitsuki knowing that Takayuki already has Haruka as his girlfriend. With Takayuki being the nice guy and already in love with Mitsuki (and not to mention being depressed with Haruka in a coma), he decided to accept Mitsuki, which inevitably caused a lot of drama, especially after Haruka suddenly woke from her coma with she doesn't realize some times has passed since she was in an accident.
Additional Notes - I know the English release was censored with the publisher removed the ~15% of the script which consist of the sex scenes, but I decided to add this anyway. Moreso because we have the team who worked on adding the translated lines into the original 18+ version with said team also translate the sex scenes, and of course as soon as the team finished the project I'll delete the additional notes here just like when I added Aojashin in 2022 list.
4. Tsui no Sora Remake (VNDB 7.93)
One day, SCA-JI got the inspiration after reading the works of Frederich Nietzsche to write the psychological horror VN Tsui no Sora and released it in 1999. His Tsui no Sora was very successful, so much so that it was called one of three legendary psychological horror VNs in Japan, with the other two VNs being Sayooshi and Jisatsu 101. In 2009, SCA-JI tried to remake Tsui no Sora as Subahibi, which then took its own identity. Then, 21 years after the original Tsui no Sora release (in 2020), SCA-JI decided to do another remake for Tsui no Sora and managed to be quite similar to the original. The VN storytelling is identical to the original and Subahibi, with multiple persons showing how they live with the world that is about to end on the 20th day of the month (July). For the video, since there's no opening, I'll use the ending video for Yasuko's chapter, who in Tsui no Sora Remake became a much more important character (and cuter). By that, I mean SCA-JI did flesh out her character far more and explain her background in her chapter, which is interesting given that she is just a side character in the original and bordering cameo in Subahibi.
3. Hatsuyuki Sakura (VNDB 8.12)
When Saga Planets was under Visual Arts, they'd release a series of VNs called Four Seasons Games. Each VN represented one season (Coming x Humming for Spring, Natsuyume Nagisa for Summer, Kisaragi Gold Star for Autumn, and Hatsuyuki Sakura for Winter) with Niijima Yuu directing two of its games; Natsuyume Nagisa and Hatsuyuki Sakura, with both are said to be the best VNs in the series. Time passes, and some other games from Niijima (Majo Koi Nikki and Summer Pockets) are available in English. Yet, Hatsuyuki Sakura has not been available in English until now, with Nekonyan releasing it in December 2024. In Hatsuyuki Sakura, we have the school delinquent Hatsuyuki, who is rude and likes to drink alcohol. One day, at the beginning of December, he saw a girl wearing a white dress. Hatsuyuki approached her, and the girl said she wanted to search for her rabbit. Afterward, the girl introduced herself as Sakura. Two days later, Sakura transferred into the same class as Hatsuyuki, and his life started to change even though he was initially annoyed. Hatsuyuki Sakura is far more serious and dramatic than the other translated Saga Planets VNs, and the tone is quite somber in some parts.
2. Irotoridori no Sekai (VNDB 8.13)
This VN has one intricate history of translating it into English. Long story short, someone decided to try to translate it in 2011, only to be dropped. Then, in 2015, Shinku Translation (Nekonyan's precursor) expressed their love for the main heroine, Shinku, by translating this. In 2019, a publisher ran Kickstarter to fund the license, which barely reached the goal before the publisher crashed into the ground shortly after. Then, in 2022, Nekonyan managed to get the Irotoridori no Sekai license. After years of those happenings, Nekonyan finally released Irotoridori in February 2024, as they'd been hoping for in the first place. In Irotoridori, we have the amnesiac MC Yuuma with a superpower given by Shinku, the mysterious girl only visible to Yuuma. One day, he saw a girl about to jump from the lighthouse, and Yuuma rushed to save the girl. Then, the girl said she knew Yuuma and asked Yuuma to save her. From there, Yuuma tried to find out what kind of ordeal the girl was having and find a way to fulfill her request. Irotoridori no Sekai is the first part of the trilogy, with the second part, Irotoridori no Hikari, adding more of the story. That said, the story for the first part is complete to a degree.
1. Gin'iro Haruka (VNDB 8.21)
One day in August 2019, Tsurezurescan announced they'd been working with Gin'iro Haruka (Ginharu) after finishing Hoshiori in March 2019. Obviously, with them proven to be very fast with their past projects, people expected the full translation patch would be available shortly. Unfortunately, after they released the partial patch (which translated Bethly, Hinata, and Momiji routes), the translator, Trip, decided to drop the project in 2021 after he worked a bit on the fourth heroine, Yuzuki, routes, leaving the two routes, Yuzuki and Mizuha, untranslated. Afterward, the editor, Irru, searched for a new translator, and then he worked with the new group in 2022. Initially, the group was only interested in translating the other untranslated route, Mizuha, before they decided to finish what Trip started. Afterward, we saw progress in the works, which led to the full patch release in April 2024. For Ginharu, the staff does the same formula as Hoshiori, in which we'll see the romance story of the MC, Yukito, to adulthood. They also add the middle school story, so all five heroines can be said to be Yukito's childhood friends. If you worry about the drama like in HatsuKoi, rest assured there won't be any in Ginharu.
For more info, there are some VNs with better scores that I didn't list, and it's because those VNs are re-releases. That aside, as you can see, now both Irotoridori no Sekai and Hatsuyuki Sakura are available in English, which is nice seeing both have failed translation attempts in the past. Also, I may as well mention Aniplex, which they've gotten a bit more aggressive compared to the previous years, even though they still focused on Type-Moon VN, and I hope I can see more interesting titles from them in 2025. Lastly, I look forward to seeing what Nekonyan and Shiravune can release in 2025.
PS - Since there's a Canadian in Gin'iro Haruka, I'm changing "Ginban" from Ginban Kaleidoscope anime (with it also had a Canadian) into "Scarlet" with it is the English word of Shinku (Irotoridori main heroine), so we have "Scarlet Kaleidoscope" as the title.
Welcome to my top 10 list of translated VNs for 2018, and I think it's the right time to make this seeing that 2019 is almost come. As for the rule, there's no yaoi, otome, fandisc (ie Fata Morgana fandisc), and re-release (Konosora and Chaos Child). As for my list here, my taste here is quite personal so I'm sorry if some of your favorite titles didn't available here. Here's my list of top 10 translated VNs for this year, and I hope that you'll enjoy it. As for the score currently I'm based on the VNDB average score at April 14th, 2025, although it may be change in the future seeing that the scores is often fluctuated.
10. Hapymaher (VNDB 7.40, Erogamescape 78)
While I did admit that I was interested with this VN because of the costumes that the girls wear in the dream, I also can see that the costumes here is quite sexy so much that it did distract the reader's attention from the real meat of this VN which is the mind screw story that have some nakige element. I understand that the distraction may be deliberate, but it's still a waste though to have that kind of sexy costumes considering that this isn't nukige lol. As for the premise, it was in regard of the MC Tohru Naito who is burdened by his past that he was lost his family, so much that he can't rest because he did have lucid dream every night that he keep felt awaken in the dream. One night he saw two mysterious girls Alice and Maia, with the former was trying to help Tohru while the latter keep doing something bad. From there Tohru keep trying to find the solution to his own problem, while Maia somehow keep dragging the other girls into Tohru's dream. Since this VN involving people entering dream, what I can say is that it would be better to just enjoy the show instead of keep thinking seriously of how is that even plausible because it'll be hurt you head if you think it. Oh and almost forget to say that Hapymaher here did have Alice in Wonderland theme.
9. Sorcery Jokers (VNDB 7.45, Erogamescape 79)
The first 2018 release from Mangagamer that was announced back at Otakon 2016, and it's setting was in regard of a city which got some magic user that was exist after years ago when the magic was suddenly came to the existence. While at the first glance it made people felt more content seeing that they manage to a normal life, beneath that there's some secret plan happening and it affected the life of several people. Two of those people are Senri (The magic using criminal) and Mutsumi Haruto (Ordinary school boy), and from there they'd try to understand more about what's happening around them in which they may need have a hard time to do that.
As for the MCs each of the MC got two heroines each, and yeah I did say it in plural because in Sorcery Jokers we'll going to have two MCs (The aforementioned Haruto and Senri). That said, since this VN involving some combat and world building we won't see much romance at least until you finished the VN, and for more info this VN is a linear one with the feature that you need to unlock the scenes first. Also while there's only two MCs occasionally we also can see the perspective from three other heroines (The fourth heroine didn't have POV), or to put it simply it's like 11eyes Cross Vision system. Speaking about Haruto, I did hear that his 'not playing fair' catchphrase is annoying although I would say that Haruto here is overshadowed by far more cool Senri, and that you can slightly understand there's a reason of why Haruto is like that if you know the twist (The twist remind me of Tales of the Abyss's own twist).
8. Fureraba ~Friend to Lover~ (VNDB 7.61, Erogamescape 81)
The first time I find this VN was through the opening song, in which I did hear it when I'm binged Astral Air opening. One time I let my Youtube video player to play next video in the play list, and it happen that one of the video was Fureraba opening in which I'd find it addictive because it's sounds melancholic. Anyway after I'd hear the opening I search about the VN, and turned out that it's a VN from Smee in which back then there's no hope to be translated even though I'm quite interested with that. At least until Nekonyan did their debut and announced Fureraba as their first title, in which they'd release it quickly at the same month that they promised (March). As for Fureraba, while the opening sounds melancholic actually the game itself is full of humor so we can say that it got some mismatch lol. The premise is simple though that namely it's about Kyousuke (The MC) who strife get his girlfriend, and that you must accomplish it through the small talks between the heroines. As for the heroines, there's estranged childhood friend, best friend, very rude classmate, and very shy popular senior girl. Overall I did enjoy this VN and if you want more Smee VNs, there'll be more considering that Nekonyan picked Making Lovers.
7. Maitetsu (VNDB 7.68, Erogamescape 77)
Since the heroines here are designed to look like child, Lose was afraid of the ban for overseas release so much that they censored panty shot in the VN as well. That said, it's still fair enough compared to what Pulltop did to Miagete because at least Sekai also released the 18+ patch for this in that it unlock the sex scenes if you didn't mind with it. Nowadays there's also the patch to restore the censored contents, so censored contents shouldn't be an issue anymore. For the premise here, we got out MC Soutetsu who suffer train accident in his childhood come back to his hometown in order to save the town from the potential water pollution thanks to the plan to build an aircraft factory. Some time later, he find a doll which turned out to be an android known as Raillord which supposed to control the train, and seeing that Soutetu got an idea to revive the train so that the town didn't need to depend on the factory as income source of the town. By the way the Raillords here are pretty much the train's life, so it's understandable if you asking about the setting if you heard it first. The questionable setting and early controversy aside, Maitetsu here did have a lot of technical talk about train itself.
6. Evenicle (VNDB 7.69, Erogamescape 82)
The first attempt from Alicesoft to make new franchise now that they already ended Rance franchise, although both of Evenicle and Rance did share some of it's lore though. As for the VN story itself, it's self contained enough considering the scope was covering of the whole Evenicle world instead of a part of the whole world like Rance, although judging from the sequel we may have many different worlds for Evenicle series setting though. As for the first Evenicle premise, it's in regard of Aster who want to marry both of his childhood friend only to be stopped by the rule that man can only have one wife unless he became the knight. So Aster decide to become the knight in order to be able to marry both, and from there he met several other women who one way or another become his wives while at the same time he face several enemies who based on Seven Deadly Sins. As for the gameplay I think it's like the combination of Final Fantasy 4 with fixed five party members with specified roles, and Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light with battle system that based on 5 BP that will regenerate by one per turn (Also with the Seven Deadly Sins). Overall I did find that Evenicle here is quite good.
5. Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road (VNDB 7.70, Erogamescape 78)
I did repeatedly say that it'll be better if we didn't expect Majikoi from this seeing that both premises are already different, but seeing that the tone is the same along with the fact that there's Takahiro who is infamously have big influence in each of his credited works, it's hard to say that it's not like Majikoi here. So perhaps the right word for Tsujidou here is 'Majikoi but no Majikoi', in which I know it's hard to understand but at least I'm certain that Tsujidou here will be full of comedy. Anyway the premise is that our Hiroshi who is far more normal compared to Majikoi's MC did spot the beautiful delinquent at his class Tsujidou Ai (The main heroine) did looking cute while pick a cat, and from there both of Hiroshi and Ai sort of in relationship for a while. At the same time, Ai was dubbed as one of the three strong delinquent in their territory along with two other heroines (Renna and Maki). For more info, this is the second Tsurezure's work that in which Trip didn't like Maki to put it lightly and said that Hiroshi here is worse compared to HatsuKoi's Yuuma. Even so, they still managed to finish Tsujidou and I'm sure that most people who've been looking forward to this would be grateful, so I appriciate their work on this even with the fact that Trip dislike this.
4. Island (VNDB 7.77, Erogamescape 82)
Frontwing 15th anniversary project, and instead of ask four writers like back at Grisaia this time they decided to ask Goo to write this, so it's normal if we expect some sci-fi from this considering that Goo did write Himawari who is also known for some sci-fi element. As for the premise, it was in regard of Setsuna who at first didn't remember his name until a girl with the name Rinne call him with that name, and so Setsuna decided to go with it and helping Rinne while at the same time try to understand his own self. We also have the setting that there's a legend that Rinne here is one part of the three families in an isolated island, and that there's a rumored curse that was supposed to be happened because of apparent past mistakes that was done by supposed Setsuna's and Rinne's ancestors. Almost forget that like Tsujidou you can have a romance with the three family daughters, although since this is all age VN obviously we wouldn't have sex scenes (At least Yukari Tamura as Rinne here is more than enough tradeoff lol). Like Grisaia, Frontwing also adapt Island into anime and it should be good if for the conclusive ending only (The anime was kind of rushed though), while at the same time the VN was ended in slightly less conclusive note.
3. Sanoba Witch aka Sabbat of the Witch (VNDB 7.84, Erogamescape 80)
Back at last year I did thought that Sekai will bring more Yuzusoft VNs, and turned out I was wrong because the one who release it first was Nekonyan. Also to elaborate more Senren Banka license was moved from Sekai to Nekonyan, leaving Sekai with Tenshin Ranman and Dracu Riot in which both of those are frozen so any chance for near future release is small. So let me redact my statement by saying that there'll be more Yuzusoft VN in the future because Nekonyan have Senren Banka. Anyway as for Sanoba's premise here it's about of how love that was started from masturbation, and it make sense in the context. Or if you want to be concise it's about our MC Shuuji who can perceive the emotion saw Nene who was masturbate in the library which turned out it's because of her witch contract that cause the horniness, and Nene sign the contract in order to fulfill her wish just like Madoka. While they say witch, I would say that magical girl here is more fitting to Sanoba but then again both of those are almost the same. For more info, this is the first officially localized Yuzusoft VN while at the same time the third (The second if you still wait for Dracu Riot official release) translated Yuzusoft VN, and once again there'll be more in the future thanks to Nekonyan.
2. Flowers -Le Volume sur Été- (VNDB 8.34, Erogamescape 81)
Also known as Flowers Summer and the most interesting JAST release at this year out of four releases to me, in which Innocent Grey as the developer curiously ask JAST to localize this instead of Mangagamer. As for the premise, it's in regard of a tall and beautiful girl, Suoh, who is painfully shy attend Saint Angraecum (Latin name for orchid) in order to improve herself, and currently suffer some heartbreak after the event from the previous Flowers (Released back at 2016) happened. Thus our snarky wheel chaired girl Yaegaki Erika took unto herself to recover Suoh and become the MC of this VN, and obviously we'll going to see of how Erika will handle her own problem in which she did find a new friend with the name Takasaki Chidori who'll later become her soulmate (This is shoujo ai VN after all). As for the whole Flowers itself, one may remember Maria-sama ga Miteru (Marimite) anime in which also did have the same setting, and also both of Flowers and Marimite were happened to be the tetralogy. Since this is the second part of tetralogy, obviously there'll be two more in which as of now JAST was working on the third part and hopefully they'll work on the fourth part (Which conclude Suoh's story) later.
1. 428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de~ aka 428: Shibuya Scramble (VNDB 8.36, Erogamescape 84)
Currently the only VN that got Famitsu score 40/40 in which in term of video game it would be a big accomplishment (Only 25 games as of 2017), and obviously it mean that Shibuya Scramble here would be a subject of hype. Although as for that, I think the hype was pretty much justified seeing that this VN is quite unique because instead of usual anime like drawing, the creator decided to use photograph which mean that it's obviously will cost a lot. As for the premise, it start simple enough with a detective was tasking into resolve the kidnapping case by giving the ransom money to the kidnapper. Of course things turn out to be not as simple as the first look, and so the detective decided to unravel what's really happening behind the kidnapping. Other than the detective, there's four other characters who somehow are involved in the kidnapping case and you'll going to see from the perspectives of all of those characters so essentially we'll going to have five MCs. Other than PS4, Shibuya Scramble was also out for PC so you can play it if you didn't have PS4, although you can only use the keyboard to play it. Almost forget that if you like Canaan anime, you should check Shibuya Scramble here seeing that this VN is the prequel for the anime itself.
For the honorable mention of 2018, we have Marriage (VNDB 6.88), Umikana (VNDB 7.03), and Schatten (VNDB 6.90). As for of the VNs at this year, I would say that with Nekonyan being aggressive looks like it'll be possible that we can get more VNs title. Although of course the situation can be change though because it's still up to the company whether they can release it or not, and we know that the company situation could be easily changed. With this year was almost close, let's look forward to 2019 later with more potential VNs release.
PS - As for the title, I'm just combined Flowers school place setting (Saint Angraecum) with Shibuya Scramble, so we got 'Angraecum Scramble' for the title although of course there's no big scrambling zebra cross in the school in Flowers like back at Shibuya.
This is not my VNTS Review, but rather I kind of want to do my version of 'Top 10 best rated translated VN at 2017' for a long while, so here goes. Seeing that we already has Conjueror posted his video in regard of that subject on Youtube, I decided to make similar list here because personally I didn't agree with some of his choice. That said, most of my pick here was still similar to him though. As for the rule, no yaoi and otome here. Also I'll use Japanese VN name and add the English name for the alias. For the score I'll use both of VNDB average and Erogamescape average, and keep in mind that it'll be fluctuate at the future - VNDB average score was based on December 4th, 2024 for the info. Let's see what I could write in this review here, and I'll explain the title in PS later. Beware of the spoiler when you play the opening.
10. Hatsukoi 1/1 (VNDB 7.19, Erogamescape 70)
This is the first VN translation work for Tsurezure (Previously they scanlated manga), and I think they did the good job in regard of HatsuKoi translation because they're working on this pretty fast. This is the first translated Tone Work's VN as well, and as we knew usually they'll gonna have descriptive detail in regard of the relationship. As for the premise, it was very simple with the MC was forming cafetaria club with five girls. For the MC himself, the opinion from the reader was quite unfavorable to say the least. So much that the staff need to post apology video in regard of MC, which mean most of the people hate him because the MC could have some face-palming action that caused the situation goes worse. Other than that I like it though that they got some vocal song from different singers in this VN, and apparently they'll repeat that feat in both of Hoshiori (Tsurezure planned next project) and Gin'iro Haruka (Ginharu). One more thing to note that this is the shortest Tone Work's VN, because it didn't span years in lengthy detail like at both of Hoshiori and Ginharu.
9. Wagamama High Spec (VNDB 7.26, Erogamescape 76)
My first impression in regard of this was not good though, if only because of how the female breast was drawn (It's too big) and the same face that the heroines have (I tried to not bothered with it though). But if you look past that art, actually this VN was pretty good because it show some comedy and good character development for the girls in which each girls did have their specialty. There's also another factor in regard of the developer (Madosoft) last VN in which it was Yakimochi Stream (Nukige like VN), so of course Wagahigh here was the major improvement from Yakimochi. The premise was the MC is a mangaka that was supposed to be the secret at his school, at least until the student council president knew that and sort of rope the MC to join the council in exchange of keep MC's secret. Turned out that the president was also the mangaka as well - and was supposed to be MC's partner in manga writing to boot, something that the MC learned after he joined the council.
8. Chrono Clock (VNDB 7.33, Erogamescape 71)
The first Purplesoft VN that was localized, and let's just say that the translation choice for this is quite divisive (Either like it, dislike it, or just neutral). The premise is that our rich MC Rei did have a pocket watch from his grandfather, and with the pocket watch he's been able to turn back the time by five minutes. Even though the power is quite powerful, our Rei was mostly use the clock to search his girlfriend by confessing and then turned back the time. One day, he met Miu who was saved by Rei turning back the time after she did fall down and dead, and our Rei did impressed by seeing Miu's determination to confess to his best friend. From there Rei decided to help Miu while at the same time fall in love with her. While at first glance the man heroine is Miu looking from the prologue alone, actually the true main heroine in here is Cro who is the goddess that reside inside Rei's clock and thus the reason of why Rei's clock did have power. Also while I did say prologue here, I felt that it's not the case because we see Miu's development in the prologue and that Miu's route is more like her ending, so we can say that Miu's route here is the prologue (I did call it Miu's arc) and her ending.
7. Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki aka Saku Saku Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossom (VNDB 7.34, Erogamescape 69)
I still remember that this VN was started as the translation project for Shinku TL with some steady progress back at 2014. At first I expected that they'll release the patch quickly, but then suddenly the updates was stopped at QC progress until one day Akerou did announce that he'll go to vacation in order to have some rest. Little we knew that back then Akerou already asked some help from Sekai in order to do the QC (Sell it to Sekai), and then Sekai announced that they help Saku Saku QC (Announced the license) back at AX 2016 in which it shocked me very hard. Even then, Sekai still have delayed the release twice back at August 2017 end (Mismanagement on the release date) before finally manage to release it back at October 2017
The premise was that our MC got a bounty of 21,000 yen to anyone else who managed to make him fall in love, because the MC was known as romance consultant and yet he himself is unable to fall in love which ironically caused by his role as the romance consultant seeing he need to hears a bunch of troubles related to love. The MC's problem is increasing when he meet a shinigami (Tina) who remind him of his childhood when he saw a shinigami, and Tina herself did insist that she's a love fairy who will help the MC love become true (A lousy one though seeing that she use dramatic romance manga as the reference). As for the graphic, it's very beautiful so at least you can enjoy the graphic there if the story is no good for you, seeing not everyone are the fan of the drama that happen in this VN.
6. Da Capo 3 (VNDB 7.49, Erogamescape 77)
This one VN have some history with our Fuwanovel here, namely that there's first attempt of translating this by our founder Aaeru. Her method is quite divisive though because she'd use VNR which could be amounted as MTL to most of the people. Even so Aaeru keep working on this until she managed to release the prologue patch, only for Mangagamer to C&D her after they got the wind on this. After that she was disappear from the forum and nowadays nobody knew where she is. Anyway, what's done is done and we finally get the release back at 2017 January (By Mangagamer obviously). For the premise, it was set at 2072 after Everlasting Sakura was wither after Da Capo 2 event (The reason of why at 2072 is spoiler though), only to have that tree mysteriously blooming again. So more or less it's just usual Da Capo, and as for play order I would suggest you to play the first side story before going to common route because it's the real prologue for Da Capo 3 (Note that the Prologue and Common Route in Da Capo 3 did have VERY different setting). As for the opening here, there's too much opening for this so I'll just use the first opening in which it's very misleading because it only depict the situation at the Prologue (At least it did have 2D drawing).
5. Dies Irae (VNDB 8.10, Erogamescape 87)
I'm sure that everyone already knew this VN, along with another certain well known VN that released at 2017 as well. But just for the formality I'll write the premise in which case it goes like there's a group of Germany who involved in some dark ritual which involved absorbing the souls in order to strengthen themselves, and the only one who could possibly put the stop of the group was the MC (Fuuji Ren) himself. From there, Ren and the group would engage in very crazy battle with the world at stake. If it sounds cliche, then yes the premise is a cliche one. But the strength of Dies Irae was supposed to be the prose that was hard to be translated, and perhaps to allow the reader immerse in the reading. Although it got some infamy though because of that as well, namely that the prose itself was pretty long and roundabout at that for some people so it might be not for everyone. Oh, and there's also some charismatic gods who is managed to get some attention. I'll post the all age version opening, because all age version is the best one with side stories available and most people would prefer it over 18+ version (I also recommend that you should play all age version instead of 18+ version here, even though the latter did have 'passionate Hitomi Nabatame-voiced love-making' scene).
4. Seabed (VNDB 8.16, Erogamescape 80)
As for the scoring, since the number of votes was still very few this VN will be the most fluctuative one. As for the premise, it was very simple in which we got a woman (Sachiko) who has her lover disappear and from there she'll try to recover from the heartbreak that caused by the disappearance by the help of her childhood friend (Narasaki) who is also a psychiatrist. By the way Sachiko's lover (Takako) here was the woman as well, so we'll gonna get some yuri VN from the first glance although there'll be no explicit sex scenes though seeing that it's all age VN. Seeing that Sachiko seek some psychiatrist, there'll be some talk in regard of psychology in which it may confusing for some people out there. From there we'll going to see what's going on in Seabed through three POV (Sachiko, Takako, and Narasaki). The VN itself is a doujin one and didn't have voice, although seeing that we have example the good doujin VN that didn't have voice (ie Umineko and Fata Morgana before being ported to the consoles) I would say that you should try Seabed here to see it by yourself, and if anything at least the art is better than Umineko default art.
3. Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen aka Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (VNDB 8.32, Erogamescape 82)
The first part of Utawarerumono sequel duology, in that it tell the story several years after first Utawarerumono. While at first it mean that you'll follow the older casts, actually in here you'll follow the new casts and the old casts here only have role as the cameo (Even though the role that the cameos have is not exactly small). So in order to enjoy this VN you better adapt with the new characters here, because we'll following them for the whole VN. As for the premise, we have our amnesiac man who find himself under treatment of a girl who capable in medicine. After the girl find out that the man did forget his name, the girl decided to call the man as Haku and the girl introduce herself as Kuon. From there both of Haku and Kuon will go to imperial city in order to find the job for Haku even though Haku just want to laze around, and from there the duo will eventually entangled in wars like back at first Utawarerumono. For more info the setting here is that the people except Haku have animal ears, and that Utawarerumono here is gameplay VN (SRPG) with the gameplay for the sequel here is vastly improved compared to the prequel. The most important thing in here is that it's only the first part of duology, so naturally the ending in here is a cliffhanger one and the second part (Futari no Hakuoro aka Mask of Truth) will pick up from the ending.
2. Chaos Child (VNDB 8.35, Erogamescape 85)
Unfortunately so far it's for console only, so no PC version for now. That said, Committee of Zero promised us that someday they'll port Chaos Child PS4 translation to PC version, so there's that. Anyway, the premise was we have another serial murder in Shibuya which eerily resembled the one back at Chaos Head (The prequel), which of course would be quite graphic considering that in the past Nitroplus was involved with Chaos Head. From there, it's up to MC and his girls teammate to solve the problem and ease the anxiety of Shibuya. Forget to say that the casts also have some kind of superpower here. From what I read apparently the girls route was not quite satisfying (The girls good as eye candy though if that's the case lol), so at least it could be interpreted that the writing was more focused on the main story which is full of sci-fi. Oh, and actually this is more in line with Steins Gate instead of original Chaos Head. As for the opening, I'll post PS4 version below because it would be more fitting seeing that we have PS4 version release for overseas here, and personally I prefer PS4 version opening (Singularity).
1. Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~ aka Wonderful Everyday ~Diskontinuierliches Dasein~ (VNDB 8.70, Erogamescape 86)
As for this VN we definitely have many history with this in regard of the translation, and this VN is another well known VN that I said back at Dies Irae. Long story short, it was started as TL Wiki project since back at 2012 before it was officially localized by Frontwing who expanded their business into localized the VN overseas. I think in regard of this they did good job for that, although there's a matter of censorship though (Not as bad as Pulltop because only the picture was censored, and it was quite disturbing for some people). As for the premise, it was in regard of the world which about to face the apocalypse at July 20th 2012, and this VN depict that day from several perspective - the beginning of Subahibi was deceivingly present this VN as yuri harem VN though. What make this VN was good was apparently some say that it could change of how one would view his life, although if one want to be more realistic it's a denpa story which is belong to a horror genre - some contents could be disturbing because it could be happen in the real life as well. In the end, while this VN was divisive enough I would say that you should try it once. Forget to said that Frontwing did add Germany subtitle for this, just like Grisaia trilogy with French subtitle.
That's all for my top 10 here, and for the honorable mention we have Dal Segno (VNDB 6.87), To Heart 2 (VNDB 7.32), and Tokeijikake (VNDB 7.13). In the future I'll try to write my list for 2016 as well later to show of how easy the VNs score was fluctuated in VNDB, and of course to compare the score difference in one year as well between Conjueror's video and now. Hope you like my post here.
PS - As for the title, I just combined both of Chaos Child and Subahibi title into 'Chaotic Everyday'. The explanation is that the 'Chaotic' part was come from 'Chaos', and 'Everyday' was come from Subarashiki Hibi (Translator's Note: Hibi mean Everyday).
Since it's already 2020 which mean the year was already changed, I figure that I should make my list for best rated translated VNs from back at 2019. I know that people here might not agree with my list here seeing that they have their own best VNs list there, but still it should be fine if I give my own list here. Once again the rule is still the same in that I wouldn't list otome, BL (No Hashihime here), fandisc, and partial translated VNs. Oh and censored VNs is obviously out of window, so no Noraneko duology even though those are quite well received on VNDB. Anyway let's see my list for 2019 here, and I'll tell what's the title mean at PS later. Almost forget to mention that the score based on today (February 27th, 2025), and it's possible that both of the rank and the score will be change in the future.
10. 9 -Nine- Kokonotsu Kokonoka Kokonoiro (VNDB 7.11)
Since this VN was from Palette, it mean that obviously Tsubasu will be responsible for the art here and as expected her drawing is quite beautiful. For the premise here, we have a lot of people manage to gain the power through the artifact from another world, and it happened after a relic in the shrine was destroyed by the earthquake. One of the people who gain the power is our MC Kakeru, and that he was asked by a mascot to gather the artifacts by asking the power user to return it. From there Kakeru did his best on his task even though it'll be hard to do, seeing that the power user might not want to return the artifact willingly. As for Nine here, I'd list Episode 1 here because it's still ongoing and the plan is that we'll going to have four Nine VNs with one VN for each heroines (The first episode heroine here is Miyako) which to say is not the most ideal release format. We also have Sekai did the good job by released two Nine episodes in a year, so good for them (They also currently working on Episode 3). Lastly if you think that the first part here is quite an average one, rest assure that each part here will get better as seen with Episode 2 later.
9. Majo Koi Nikki aka The Witch's Love Diary (VNDB 7.21)
The first Niijima Yuu VN that was translated, which is quite an accomplishment seeing that there's several failed attempt to translate his works. For the project itself, at first it's started as fan translation by Luna Translation with the progress looks satisfying at least until AX 2018 in which Sekai did announce this. While it's surprising to me, at least it's not as shocking like back at Saku Saku announcement. After that, like other Sekai announcements there's no much talk from them until when they decided to do sudden release back at July 26th. For the premise, we have our female MC Nanno Alice find a mysterious diary. Curious she peek on the diary only to find out that apparently the diary depict the life of a man named Sakurai Takumi (Majokoi's true MC), and Alice find out that Takumi is quite a player for approaching several women and then have sex with them. Obviously being Niijima Yuu work nothing as simple as that, so in Majokoi here we'll going to unravel some mystery behind Sakurai Takumi. While the story itself are interesting in that it have some unexpected element, some reader are understandably react like Alice when they play the prologue in that they disturbed with Takumi's attitude.
8. Sekai de Ichiban Dame na Koi aka The Most Forbidden Love in the World (VNDB 7.63)
So-called White Album 2 prototype, although in this case it's more like Maruto only have one main heroine (Mitoko) instead of two. That said, I can understand the reason why people draw some comparison with WA2, because Maruto did apply some of Damekoi characteristic in WA2 as well. While the English title looks suggestive, honestly I don't think it's that bad if we already see some example of big age difference romance in other media. Of course that kind of romance would be very sensitive issue in real life, and let's leave it at that. The premise is we have 28 years old MC Osamu who just fired from the company as the scapegoat and that he didn't have home to come back seeing that he's been divorced, so basically his life is very unlucky. After meeting a passerby woman who somehow help him and tell where her home is, Osamu decided to go to her home only to find out that the woman is eloped leaving her 14 years old daughter Mitoko alone who proceed to slap Osamu. After sorting out the situation, Osamu decided to help Mitoko and possibly to have so-called forbidden love with her. For more info, this VN have ladder structure route and it's been translated by the late Conjueror.
7. Kotonoha Amrilato aka The Expression Amrilato (VNDB 7.65)
This VN have a unique premise, and of course it's obviously not only just because it's a GL VN. Also it's not just because we have the MC transported to the another world as well either, even though it's still unique on it's own seeing that isekai translated VNs is still quite rare. The reason is because in Amrilato we'll be able to learn another language, and in this case it's Esperanto. Too bad that Valve didn't manage to see the educational value of this VN and only see the bath scene, so they decided to throw a tantrum by banned it for a while (Even though Amrilato here is all age). Well all of those are in the past, and at least now we can get this from Steam as well after Valve revoke the ban. The premise is we'll have our female MC Rin who somehow going to another world, and naturally she tried to communicate with the other people only to find out that it's futile because the people can only speak Esperanto. At least until she find a girl (Ruka) who can speak Japanese a bit, and from there Ruka teach Rin the Esperanto language bit by bit while at the same time both of them develop their relationship with each other.
6. Ano Harewataru Sora yori Takaku aka Farther Than the Blue Sky (VNDB 7.66)
At first I thought it's impossible for Mangagamer to localize this seeing that we have Chuable bankrupt before we have Haretaka translated here, only to turned out that I was wrong because Mangagamer announced this back at Otakon 2018. After some payment processor problem, Mangagamer manage to release this back at September. For the premise, we'll have our so-called idiot Otoya who attend a general class in a school that was famous with the rocket making. Then at one night he met with a red haired tsundere girl Arisa who want to retrieve the rocket from the sea, and Otoya do that without hesitation. After that, both of them met again at school and after Arisa tell a story on how her rocket club Byakko will be abolished because lack of member, Otoya decided to join the club despite his lack knowledge of rocket. For Haretaka here, I can say that the writer did good job compared to Suki Suki in that he manage to have all four heroines did have enough interaction with each other in the common route, which is very important seeing that Suki Suki did have out of context heroine (I'm looking at you Chiho, and I'm sort of understand why Arunaru did translate her onii-chan as dude).
5. Nanairo Reincarnation (VNDB 7.71)
For Nanairo I can say this is quite a smooth one in regard of the release so no much to say other than than Sekai did released it (After several QCs) at the same time when Nekonyan released Aokana, so good job to Sekai here. As for Nanairo here, it have some appeal namely that you'll have the MC as university student instead of usual high schooler. For the premise our MC Makoto did got some inheritance from his grandfather in form of a house. In there Makoto find out that his grandfather have some spirutual connection, and that Makoto did have same capability like the grandfather. As if it's not enough, Makoto also found out that his cheerful childhood friend was in fact a selfish zashiki warashi who's been helping Makoto's family for generations. Then Makoto was being told that his grandfather help the police with the cases that involved supernatural as the spirit detective, and Makoto was also supposed to inherit that role. Seeing no choice, Makoto slowly learning the rope of his new role in solving some supernatural cases. Lastly, I'm content with Nanairo release here seeing that it's one of well received VN out there.
4. Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai (VNDB 7.92)
After several years of waiting we finally manage to have a proper translated August eroge with sex scenes and all, and with this August's curse that there's no translated August eroge was finally broken. I know there's Yoake release back at 2016, but it didn't count because the translated one is the backport of PS2 version which mean no sex scenes (It has two additional routes in exchange of sex scenes removal though). For a bit of history, the translation was started back at 2016 before the project going silent for about three years before the editor decided to leak the complete translation patch at Reddit in April. Granted it's unedited according to the editor, but at least it's still fine compared to several bad translations out there (ie SakuraGames localized VNs).
The premise is we have Kyoutarou (The MC) who is a sole member of Library Committee that like to read alone, at least until he met with Tsugumi who have her mission to help everyone in the academy. At first Kyoutarou thought it was a bother, but after he got a message from someone called Sheperd who somehow know what Kyoutarou doing and that Tsugumi also got the message, Kyoutarou decided to help Tsugumi in order to get down the mystery. After that, it's also revealed that some more students (Mostly female for an obvious reason) are received the same message, and thus the students decided to join the committee as well. While initially Kyoutarou was confused, slowly he learn to enjoy his time in the committee together with the new members.
3. Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai (VNDB 8.06)
The VN that Trip want to transla note first, although Irru convince Trip to do HatsuKoi first though because back then both of them (Tsurezure) didn't have enough knowledge to do engine work on Hoshiori. Time passed, and they started to work on Hoshiori here back at October 2018. Six months later, they manage to release the full patch of Hoshiori and currently they working on Ginharu. The premise of Hoshiori itself is our MC Ryousuke going back to his hometown after seven years living in another town, and after that Ryousuke was roped into helping Tanabata festival which is the biggest event in his hometown. From there he'll have a romance with one of six heroines. I also like to note that this VN have a have extensive after stories for each heroines which is a rarity in the VNs, and that they carry this concept to Ginharu. Other than that, I think Hoshiori here is sort of feedback for HatsuKoi's criticism seeing that tone work's try to make Ryousuke more capable compared to Yuuma and also tried to reduce the amount of drama. Granted that those change might be a little too successful for some people, but at least it make Hoshiori's reception is generally better compared to HatsuKoi.
2. Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm (VNDB 8.30)
In the past there's a project to translate this by Ren, and I remember that he was accidentally delete the fully translated script of Aokana. After that he basically running away by throwing a tantrum after promising an announcement. While accidental loss of data is very annoying, I think he just need to clearly say that he quit the project if he can't keep up with it. That aside we finally have Aokana thanks to Nekonyan after their successful Kickstarter, and we got an improved version at that seeing that it also have music gallery which not exist in the original version for some reason. The premise is we have a fictional sport that required to wear flying shoes (Flying Circus/FC), and our MC Masaya was a prodigy at FC before he got hit with some trauma and then quit. Time passed, and Masaya find Asuka who has great talent for FC. After that, Masaya is getting dragged back into FC as the coach. At first he's against it, but slowly he started to find the enjoyment that has been lost to him in the past. Aokana here is also serve as some sort of sprite's Swan Song, seeing that it's their last big VN before they quit although apparently they've been revived so we may have the promised sequel in the future.
1. Baldr Sky Dive2 “Recordare” (VNDB 8.67)
One of most awaited VNs from back at 2010, and back then GIGA did C&D one of the projects that tried to translate this. Time passed, and at 2016 we have a surprise in which Sekai did license this. Of course we worried that there'll be no 18+ contents seeing that Sekai didn't say a word about it, and turned out that our worry is right because Sekai was forced by GIGA to release it censored. While at first it mean that we'll get censored Baldr Sky, fortunately a fan immediately make 18+ patch of this so we can enjoy the sex contents. The premise is we have Kou woke up in the battlefield with the beautiful lady (Rain) called him lieutenant, and Kou is confused because his memories are mostly about his school life. After a while Kou started to remember 'Gray Christmas' word in that it's a major incident, and he started to find out more about his memories. Some things to note that this is a gameplay VN with robot, and that we'll going to have virtual world setting. As for the releases, in the past GIGA released the VN in two parts while Sekai did release this in one package. I list the 2nd part here along with the opening for it, because in the original version the 2nd part here cover the whole Baldr Sky.
That's all for my list here, and by the way if I may name some honorable mention here, I would name HGB (VNDB 7.03), Lamunation (VNDB 6.89), and Bokuten (VNDB 7.13). I think overall 2019 is quite a nice year with long awaited title releases such as Baldr Sky, Aokana, and Damekoi so overall I'm content with it. Another things to note is that Sekai recently like to release their title at the same time when one of their competitor released their own title, so perhaps it might be worth to expect some Sekai release whenever some other companies release their VN (Well at least it's nice seeing them being active here). In the end, I hope that we'll have more VNs releases at 2020 later especially from Nekonyan here.
PS - For the title here, I'm simply combined 'Baldr' word from Baldr Sky and 'Rhythm' from Aokana so we have 'Baldr Rhythm' for the title here.
Quite a crazy year that we have in regard of 2020, especially with pandemic and all here. Anyway just like previous best rated VNs list I'll list what's translated VNs that we have in 2020 here, and the rules are still the same in that I won't list BL, fandisc (So no Aokana EXTRA1 and Miagete FD), partial translated VNs, censored VNs (None at this year thankfully) and otome VNs. Let's see what kind of VNs that I'll list below, and I'll tell the meaning of the title at PS below. Also I'm sorry if some of your favorite VNs here didn't available in my list, and I know that each of you may think differently on what's the best translated VNs that we have at 2020. For the scoring, it would be based on VNDB average score at February 27th, 2025, and as always both of the score and the rating can be change in the future.
10. Sakura no Mori Dreamers (VNDB 7.30)
I see a lot of critic in regard of Sakuramori here, whether in regard on how the genre (Horror and charage) didn't really mix together or on how the four heroines are really pale in comparison with one heroine that didn't have route for logical reason (Madoka). For the former since the charage portion did happen after the horror portion ended, at least you can treat the charage as the breather after horror portion that took the whole common route. As for the latter, I can only say that it should understandable if one have been play Evangile and it also happen that the writer (Kure) did write one side heroine (Ruriko) is more prominent compared to the four heroines, and obviously Kure did apply his Ruriko writing by making Madoka more prominent. As for the premise, it's about our MC Shinji who's been in grief thanks to a crazy killer did kill his childhood friend Madoka and so he's been in despair. At least until he was invited by a girl (Kureha) in order to help her with fighting the monsters inside the dream in order to protect the city that have the supernatural incidents occur a lot, and so Shinji decided to accept her invitation in order to move on from his loss of Madoka.
9. Riddle Joker (VNDB 7.60)
Back at January last year, Nekonyan did announce this along with (Redundant) Dracu Riot, which to say sort of ironic seeing that mod Clephas did say that Riddle Joker here is very similar to Dracu Riot. As for what I can say in regard of that, at least I can say that I recommend anyone else to read Riddle Joker first if you still waiting for Nekonyan to release Dracu Riot. Also both works did have it's own pro and con, so to each of their own in regard on which VN is better. The premise goes like we have Satoru who've been hide the secret that he's a secret agent and then he got the mission to infiltrate the school that educate the students with super power. Along the mission, he met the student council president Ayase who find out Satoru's secret and turned out Ayase also has a big secret, and her secret is she wore the pad to cover the fact that her breast is quite small. As both of them known each other secret, they started to get closer with each other and naturally there'll be romance between them (Of course Satoru can ended up with other girls beside Ayase). Lastly I can say that it's nice that we can see two translated Yuzusoft VNs in a year, and thus now we have five translated Yuzusoft VNs.
8. Senren Banka (VNDB 7.70)
At July 2017 in AX Sekai did announce this along with several other announcements, and of course back then I really hoping that Sekai will deliver it. Only to find out that Sekai didn't do anything on Senren Banka for around 17 months until when Nekonyan did announce this, and from there we've started to see some progress on Senren Banka. Time passed, and back at Valentine Nekonyan did release this after they did release the trial beforehand. As for the premise, we have our MC Masaomi visiting his grandfather village in order to helping out the ryokan. Before going to Ryokan, Masaomi did see a tourist attraction in which there's a katana was stuck in the stone and he did try to pull it. Little did he know back then that he'll broke the katana and thus it created the commotion, with the end result that Masaomi must engaged to the shrine maiden as form of responsibilities. While at first Masaomi didn't like it seeing that the village is basically out of nowhere, it didn't take too long before Masaomi took a liking to the village. By the way while the story in common route is interesting, in the end it's still a charage so don't expect some epic story in Senren Banka here.
7. Robotics Notes (VNDB 7.71)
Science Adventure VN that is quite unfortunate in that it has been compared with Steins Gate so much that people think it's not good, and the staffs here didn't help at all by released the fandisc that has Steins Gate major characters (Daru) as the second MC which indicate that even the staffs themselves didn't have confidence that Robotics Notes can stand on it's own. As for Robotics Notes itself, we have our MC Kaito who's been childhood friend with Akiho. One day in order to avoid the disband of Robot club, Akiho decided to make a big accomplishment by building a giant robot, and of course she decided to enlist Kaito's help who at first is not quite enthusiastic. Some times after that Kaito find some files called Kimijima Report, and the report did contain a plot that involving the whole world which of course would lead into something big as per Science Adventure VN. Curious about the report, Kaito decided to investigate it while at the same time he gather more allies to help Akiho build the robot. The PC version at first didn't have mouse control support which to say is a questionable decision, but thanks to Committee of Zero who released the improvement patch now we can play this using mouse.
6. Making Lovers (VNDB 7.78)
Another Smee VN, and it's the 2nd Smee VN that Nekonyan localized after Fureraba. Since it came from same company along with have same writer, Makeover here also has comedy writing like Fureraba and of course Makeover here is just usual moege. As for the premise, we have Kazuma who is a young adult and live alone. Obviously this time the MC here is not a high school student, but instead Kazuma here is already graduated from the college. Even so, the problem is still the same though in that he want to have a girlfriend. In Makeover here we supposed to help Kazuma to get his girlfriend, although this time instead of small talk like at Fureraba you can just chose the heroines by using the choice like usual VN and there's no much choices so you can immediately make Kazuma to have his girlfriend. As for the girlfriend candidates (ie heroines), this time we have five with the candidates are a tsundere former college friend, a high school model, a stepsister, a weather forecast presenter, and a strange neighbor. Nekonyan also plan to localize the FD of this, although as of now there's still no work on the FD because they've been quite busy with handling many other projects.
5. Ryuusei World Actor aka Meteor World Actor (VNDB 7.82)
At first Shiravune (Formerly ShiraVN) want to release this on Steam, but for some reason Valve reject it for three time so that we can't see Steam release for it. After the repeated rejections, Shiravune decided to release it on Johren in which it's their own store (Both of Shiravune and Johren are owned by DMM). For the premise, we have our MC Ruka who work as a policeman and that he's been quite infamous within the forces. One day he got a female elf newbie named Claris, and Ruka guide Claris begrudgingly because he was forced to do that by his superior. Other thing to note is that it's first Kinugasa translated work in that it show he can write good comedy along with good setting in which the other races live together with human (One of those is the aforementioned elf), while at the same time he can't write an ending to his own story because he spent too much time on establishing the setting or to put it nicely he prefer to write open ending that some people may like it. I know currently the sequel is in development according to this tweet, but seeing that Kinugasa still wrote open ending even at Akagoei 3 I don't think that Kinugasa won't write the open ending in the sequel.
4. Atri -My Dear Moments- (VNDB 7.84)
At 2020 Aniplex decided to enter the VN market, and they published two title at once, Adabana Itan and Atri. For Adabana Itan, it's Liar-soft VN with beautiful arts courtesy of Ooishi Ryuuko, while Atri is Frontwing VN with both Konno Asta and SCA-JI as the staffs, although SCA-JI only direct the art. By the way, Atri itself is all age in the first place, so you didn't need to worry the sex scenes removal like what Pulltop did to the writer's previous works (Konosora and Miagete). Atri's setting is the sunken world with only the little habitable area remains, although it's not the main focus of the VN. Instead, the VN will be focused on the relation of the MC, Natsuki, and the titular character Atri. In Atri, we have Natsuki who has lost both of his mother and his leg in his childhood because of the accident. One day, he dive into the ruined his late grandmother undersea laboratory in hope finding some treasure that he may be use to buy advanced cybernetic leg. However instead of treasure, what Natsuki is found on the ruin is the robot girl who called herself Atri. Feeling thankful to Natsuki. Atri decided to repay Natsuki's kindness by she doing her best to act as Natsuki's leg.
3. Gekkou no Carnevale (VNDB 7.87)
I must say that I'm quite surprised with this, especially I did know about this three days after the release (The release day was at Christmas). Moreso if I consider that the one who release this was GHS of all people, and naturally people are skeptical about this seeing that his reputation is quite infamous thanks to his (So-called) badly translated Cross Channel. That said even with knowing his past infamy and that the translation of this is apparently not quite well done, I still say that you should read this to either read more Nitroplus VN or check if the translation is really bad as people says. As for the premise of Carnevale, we have Romeo who work as taxi driver and ironically has a bad sense of direction. However, he has a secret in that he's a former member of a mafia and he himself is a werewolf, and that the mafia where he did belong is pursuing him. Along the way, Romeo pick a living doll that didn't have past memories named Anna, and Romeo decided to live together with her. Of course seeing that Romeo did need to fend off his pursuer along with some new enemies, naturally he'll fight some people and thus Carnevale here has fighting scenes.
2. Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi aka YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story (VNDB 8.02)
As for Kimikoi, at first I was surprised on why Nitroplus here like to make the VN setting like a usual moege with school and all. At least until one day in which I watch a certain video, and I can say that I like that Nitroplus did go all out step outside their comfort zone by making a lighthearted moege. As for the premise, we have our MC Shinichi who has a childhood friend named Miyuki. One day he find a weird girl named Aoi who like to mutter some nonsense terms such as game, heroine, and the like. Of course Shinichi as normal people would pitying her because it mean that she's not normal so Shinichi decided to enlist Miyuki help. Over time, Shinichi, Miyuki, and Aoi become the best friends and as per moege rule both heroines are fall in love with Shinichi. I see that some people did mention that this VN did resemble Doki Doki Literature Club when they play or review Kimikoi, but I would say that they're totally wrong because there's no literature club in Kimikoi here. I also see some people did compare Miyuki with Monika, but I think they're pretty much different with the only similarities are those their name started with M and both names have six letters.
1. Summer Pockets (VNDB 8.47)
The newest KEY work, and it's their big work after Rewrite. As for the VN itself, all of the twists did resemble some of previous KEY VNs twists here and thus it make Summer Pockets quite fit as first KEY VN to play, or perhaps can also be treated as nostalgia for veteran KEY player. As for the translation, at first Alka is the one who handle this, but later Visual Arts decided to localize this and they released this back at February. With Reflection Blue release, Alka decided to work on that and they also decided to reworking the original version translation seeing that they're not satisfied with the official translation. As for the premise, we have Hairi who experienced some unpleasant incident decided to go to the island where his late grandmother did reside in order to recover. From there he'll get introduced with the four girls who one way or another will have the romance with him. Forgot to say that while Summer Pockets twists like KEY past VNs, the main writer here is Niijima Yuu in which it made Summer Pockets as the second work of him that was translated after Majokoi. As for the opening, I'll use the one from the original version because it has nice 2D animation and Reflection Blue keep it anyway.
That's all for my list this year, and as for my honorable mention I'll name Ouka Sabaki (VNDB 7.56), Kami no Rhapsody (VNDB 7.14), and IxShe Tell (VNDB 6.93). Overall for 2020 I can say that Nekonyan did being aggressive by releasing several interesting title at once, although I guess I can say that Mangagamer is not so bad considering the year that we have here (If anything else I'll look forward to their Musicus release later). Also this year we have Shiravune which as we know is DMM branch, I'll look forward to see what kind of feat that they'll be able to do in the future even though their VNs lineup is not as interesting as Nekonyan yet. To conclude this, I'll look forward to what both of Nekonyan and Shiravune can do later along with some potential interesting releases at 2021 later.
PS - As for the title, I combined both of the opening song title from both of Makeover (Girls' Carnival) and Summer Pocket (Alkatale), so we have 'Girls' Tale' for the title here
For this week title, because we have Kiminozo Restoration project along with Sousaku Kanojo translation project, I combined both with 'Rumbling' is from Kiminozo English title (Rumbling Hearts) and 'Romance' is from Sousaku Kanojo full title (Sousaku Kanojo to Ren'ai Koushiki with Ren'ai mean romance), so for the title we have 'Rumbling Romance'. Anyway, for this week we have both Mangagamer and Frontwing announced the same exact date for their respective VNs release, Raillore and Perennial Dusk. That said, my biggest attention is toward Kiminozo Restoration project though with the goal is to technically restore the removed sex scenes in the English version. Overall, this week is another below average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Forget to mention we also have the releases, although I'm not quite interested with those. For the first release, we have Kagura Games released the VN with pixel graphic Amaoto ni Michiru Yoru with the premise we have the MC was randomly came into the bar at the middle of rainy night with he see a cute girl who soon proved to be very good conversation partner. Shiravune manage to release Beastkin Training, and feel free to get the game if you want to play as the one who train a haughty noble beastwoman. We also have more important news from Shiravune, namely they formed new brand called Co-Fun Games that will be focused on the doujin games (ie RPGMaker games), and hopefully it slightly make Shiravune job to localize VNs easier now that they have their sister brand to take care of their increasing RPGMaker games backlog (At 10 with another 10 coming later) even though I know RPGMaker games has cheaper cost to license.
Like I say beforehand Mangagamer planned to release Raillore, which is good because as we know it was banned by Steam with Mangagamer's employee show some suggestive CG which may influence the reviewer, and you can wait until 29th later if you've been waiting for Raillore even though you can't get it from Steam. You can wait until that date if you've been waited for Perennial Dusk in which it's the new VN written by Irotoriddori's writer, and it'll be available on Steam. From Shinzou translation, we have Dekinai is at 13% edited and Sousaku Kanojo is at 47% edited. Lastly, we have the project with the goal to restore the sex scenes in Kiminozo that was removed in the translated version, although in this case it's more like translating the version that contain the sex scenes because the team find the difficulties to insert the removed scenes (At around ~15% of the script) into Steam version. For the progress, currently the team was almost done translating all of the scenes with they now doing the editing work as well, and more importantly they planned to release the patch in the near future so let's see if we can see the team manage to do so.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we have the updates from Mangagamer in regard of Raillore and Luckydog I decided to make a parody of a famous novel from 1872, A Dog of Flanders, by changed 'Flanders' into 'Raillore' so we have 'A Dog of Raillore' as the title. This week we have Mangagamer's update along with some fan translation project and also some new title announcements, although to me the main interest is only in the updates, so this week is ended up to be a bit plain one. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week as well.
For Raillore's update, unfortunately it's not a pleasant one with said update in regard of its banning from Steam for some unknown reasons, which obviously put the snag into Mangagamer's plan to release it. Then again, there may be some CG that shows a lot of skin in the build and we know the reviewer could probably ban the VN based on that reasons if Holy Undead ban is any indication. Let's just hope Mangagamer find a way to release it. For the other updates, we have Luckydog finally in testing process, both Sleepless VNs are fully translated and edited, Funbag Fantasy 4 is now fully translated along with 95% edited, and Rance X finally show some editing major progress with it now at 24% edited. We also have Hakuouki SSL will be released in this year with it only available on Switch. From what I see, SSL is the alternative universe that had the casts attend the school in modern era, while the original Hakuouki itself is about a girl who time slipped into the past (1850's).
JAST Blue did announce the new title, and it's obviously another BL VN with they announced Paradise Musubi with it being the fandisc of Paradise that had the after stories for the heroes. In case you want another VTuber VN, we have Entergram was about to release the VN with the main heroine is the VTuber Nekomata Okayu, Okayu Nyumu, and you can wait until August 7th later if you want to get it. Forgot to mention that we already have the exact release date for Putrika for some times, and said date is May 20th later so let's see if the publisher can release it at that date later. We also have fan translation updates, and one of those is in regard of the original Tsui no Sora with it already finished the editing and porting work leaving the translation team now working on the finalization before the release. Lastly, we have the updates from Shinzou, and for the updates we have Sousaku Kanojo is at 41% edited and Dekinai is at 86% translated along with 3% edited.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we have Sakura Wars 2 fan translation patch release I decided to make a parody of a very famous series that also set in Taisho era, Demon Slayer, with I added 'Sakura' in front of it, so we have 'Sakura Demon Slayer' as the title. As for this week, other than Sakura Wars 2 we also have relatively big release with Hundred Lines with Danganronpa staffs work together with Uchikoshi to write it. Other than that, there's Love Live Nijigasaki VN if someone want to see more Nijigasaki in form of VN. Overall, this week is a below average one to me even with the number of the releases simply because I'm not really interested with those, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
For Sakura Wars 2, what I understand is that it was the SRPG series with dating sim element that Sega made, and the only officially translated game of it is Sakura Wars 5 on Playstation 2 with the first game is also fan translated. For the premise of series, we have Ichirou who is capable to using a special armor (ie robot) that can only be operated by female, and his ability is very useful to have because his town was keep getting attacked by the creature called kouma, so Ichirou was assigned to lead a squad full of female who can operate the armor in order to combat the evil creature. Note that the game is only for Sega Saturn, which mean you need to use emulator in order to play it. After some times, we have an update on Shin Koihime Musou, with it now is at 74% edited.
What I know about Hundred Lines is that it has quite a numerous ending with it being SRPG and the illustration resembled Danganronpa series, and also it has the 15 casts trapped into a creepy school headed by a creepy principal. However, this time the 15 students was not asked to kill each other, but instead they tasked to defend the school from the invaders and they only have 100 days to do so, which to say is still not an easy task for the students. Well, seeing it has good reception, perhaps you may interested to try it, and have fun if you decided to do so. Honestly I don't want to talk about Love Live Nijigasaki VN, but I may as well talk about it a bit in regard of the MC with the staffs at least smart enough to not make the MC being male, although I'm not really sure if the featureless MC is better alternative because to me it would be nice if it follow the original mobile game with the player gender locked as female and thus become the basic of the anime MC, Yu. Feel free to get Nijigasaki VN if you want to see more Love Live in the VN instead of the two upcoming Nijigasaki anime, and have fun.
Cherry Kiss will release another nukige on May 9th later, Succu-Mama, and said nukige has the succubus heroine with said succubus is the MC's step mother as the title indicate. We also have a mystery VN, Honjin Murders, released featuring the MC Kindaichi Kosuke with he is the famous fictional detective in Japan (The anime fan probably know him more as the grandfather of the MC of Kindaichi manga with the reference cause some dispute), and the VN is the adaptation of Kindaichi's very first case that was out in 1946. For the last release, we have Yokai Landlord with it another mystery VN where the MC will try to find out who is the monster among the tenants of his apartment that the mysterious person warned about.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For the title, because we have Tayutama announced with its full title is 'Tayutama -Kiss on My Deity-' along with Sacrifice Villain finally released, I decided to make Boku no Hero Academia English title parody (My Hero Academia) because Sacrifice Villain setting is very clearly Boku no Hero Academia setting, so we have 'My Deity Academia' as the title. As for this week, the most obvious things here would be it was less plain compared to the last two weeks. To elaborate more, this week we have Shiravune being active with them released two of their title and announce one of new title. There's also the aforementioned Tayutama announcement, although I can't say that I like the announcement. Overall this week is an average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
I did mention that I like to see Tayutama available in English, and my reaction is initially interested after a sudden announcement from a new company decided to bring it into English. However, turned out there's a catch, namely there won't be sex scenes because the publisher also release it on Switch. While granted Tayutama main attraction is not the sex scenes, it's still too bad there won't be translated sex scenes, which is more like Kiminozo or Yoake (Because the fan translator for the latter chose the PS2 backport that had two additional routes in exchange of the sex scenes). Anyway, for Tayutama it's about Yuuri who suddenly met a mysterious girl Mashiro which turned out to be the deity, and Yuuri's life start to change from there. Well, it's more or less a charage, and it'll be released sometimes in this Spring. Oh yes, you can see the Steam store for Tayutama if you want to see some of its translation example.
We have Nagi no Koi is now available on Steam, and as it turned out Shinzou Translation did involve in the official translation of it. Well no much to say other than it's redundant release to me, although feel free to get Nagi no Koi from Steam if you want to support the developer with the money (For the info the developer did initially release this as free game). Speaking of redundant release, Nekonyan announced they already have the release estimation time for Koichoco, and they said it'll be available sometimes in Q1 of 2025 (Up to March 31st later) with they already opened the Steam store for it. Again it's redundant release to me, but at least the Steam version should be easier to install seeing it's quite cumbersome to install the original game. We also have Alka gave sudden update in regard of Kud Wafter, and for the update currently we have the all age version of it is at 87.5% translated.
Shiravune announced ExS-Tia Concerto 2 with the premise is still the same with the prequel only with the story focused on the other magical girl, Touka. With Shiravune announced its second game even before released the first game, perhaps they may aim for simultaneous release. Also by them announced its second game, I hope they also announced the third and fourth game as well if only to complete the whole tetralogy. They also released Ochingin, in which it's about the MC who have a lot of sex thanks to him have the sugar mommy of a CEO. Lastly, they finally released Sacrifice Villains after almost three years of waiting (The longest record for Shiravune for now) with the artist is the one responsible for Healthy Hentai nukige series. For the premise, it's about the MC who was tasked to rehabilitate three super villainess in setting. However, the way of the MC carry the task is not exactly very heroic, seeing the MC apply a lot of love into the villainess in the forceful manner with several ways. Anyway, feel free to get Sacrifice Villain if you like the art from Healthy Hentai and want to see more of it in this superhero parody nukige, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and for the title I'll tell about it in PS later. For this week, well honestly speaking it's quite a plain one which to say is quite understandable if we consider it as the breather one. We also have Shiravune released the nukige, and once again we have a number of updates from fan translation. With that done, let's see what I can write in regard of this week as well.
For Kamitsubaki City Regenerate, I do a bit of research of Kamitsubaki and find out they're a group of virtual idol that currently becoming popular. For the VN itself, what I got it's about the male MC who somehow ended up in a ruined world, and after he woke up he met up with a girl named Kafu with the MC soon set up a quest to save the ruined world together with Kafu. Another things that I know is the VN story is apparently quite dark, it have some gameplay with the gameplay is the usual RPG along with rhythm game in which the latter is quite obvious because of Kamitsubaki group as the virtual idol group, and Lemnisca themselves was involved in the translation work of it. I do hear the VN is quite good even with the virtual idol group stuffs, so feel free to try the VN if you're curious.
Shiravune did release Real Eroge Situation DT, and once again it's about the reality of eroge MC with he was manage to have sex with five girls even though he was called out as being unlucky because he manage to crush any romance flags. Go get the VN if you're in the mood for a nukige with big breast heroines (And admittedly quite nice arts), and have fun. For fan translation updates, we have Ushieta is in QC work with it now is 63% done, and Watamasu suddenly see some progress in QA after around three years with it's QA is now 40% done. Lastly, we have Shizuku was translated the same team who translate ToHeart 1997 version, and currently 190 script files of it are already translated. For a bit of explanation, Shizuku is one of the well known denpa VN that popularized the genre in 1996 with the story has the MC see the girl in her class became insane with he asked by his uncle to investigate the matter.
That's all for what I can write in regard of thhis week, and see you next week.
PS - For the title, because we have Kamitsubaki City Regenerate released with they're turned out to be a group of virtual idol, I decided to make a parody for one of their song, Confused Telepathy, by changed 'Telepathy' into 'Time Leap' with the latter is from Dekinai Watashi's MC ability to do time leap to the past, so we have 'Confused Time Leap' as the title.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and for the title I'll tell it at PS later. For this week, we have Shiravune do some move, although it's not really quite interesting yet. We also have Idea Factory released Senjou no Waltz along with Sekai announced Nekopara 5 exact release date. Overall, I feel this week is below average, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
First of all, we have Watamasu QA work is now 41% done. Sekai also finally announced the exact release date for Nekopara 5 (Or if we follow the title Nekopara After) with they'll release it on May 23rd later, so feel free to note the date if you want to get the last(?) VN in Nekopara series and maybe like Sayori's art. Once again we have Idea Factory released Senjou no Waltz, and good for Idea Factory by releasing it on time despite it's only for Switch. For the premise of it, we have a girl who lost everything find herself wielding a cursed sword, and from now on she didn't have any other choice except to live in the battlefield with she attend a military academy together with several handsome students. Go get the VN if you want to play another otome VN on Switch, and have fun. After some waiting, finally Visual Arts announced when they'll release Reflection Blue after Summer Pocket anime was aired, and it'll be sometimes in Summer later.
Shiravune announced the exact date for one of their title, Beastkin Training, with said date is on 30th later so you can note the date if you want to get it. They also announced Karenai Sekai, and technically speaking it has quite good graphic so it should be nice title to look forward to, if not for Shinzou Translation already released the patch of it back in last September, so yeah it's more or less redundant to me (Feel free to wait though if you didn't find the translation by Shinzou satisfying). Lastly, they announced another ExS-Tia title, although it's not Concerto but instead it's Magical Pastel Marie with it being the parallel story of the original ExS-Tia that has the main girl (Marina) is Souma's younger sister becoming the magical girl called Magical Pastel. For the info, in the original Marie is Souma's childhood with Souma being the MC, and no Marina being younger in the alternate continuity won't allow her escaping her fate from getting raped every time she was defeated.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
PS - For the title, I made the VA allusion for the purple Cure from the past two series (Kirihana in WPC as Cure Friendy and Takamori Natsumi in IdolPC as Cure Kyun-Kyun) because we have the announcement in regard of the two VNs that had them, Kirihana in Karenai Sekai and Takamori Natsumi in Summer Pockets, so we have 'Wonderful Idol' as the first part. For the second part, I just change 'Magical' into 'Pretty' from Shiravune's announcement, ExS-Tia Magical Pastel (Which conveniently is purple magical girl), and so we have 'Wonderful Idol Pretty Pastel' as this week full title.
For this week title, because we have Irotoridori no Hikari released and I did make the parody of the first part of Narnia when Irotoridori no Sekai was released, I decided to make a parody of the second part of Narnia, Prince Caspian, by changing it into 'Princess Asumi' with Asumi is the main heroine of the new little sister VN (Countryside Siblings). Anyway, we have Irotoridori no Hikari translation patch as the most notable news for this week, and another notable news is we have Mojika release. Overall this week is an above average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
After several delays, JAST finally manage to released Mojika. For Mojika itself, while I know there's much more beneath the VN with it seems like a disturbing nukige, I feel the content a bit too disturbing and hard to recommend to most people. In here, we have an ugly student, Suteru with he was constantly bullied because of his ugliness. Unbeknown to the bullies, Suteru has superpower which allow him to read the mind of the people within the radius of 120 centimeter, although since every thoughts towards him are harsh he keep looking at the floor to avoid it. One day Suteru was asked to come into the rooftop by a girl he has crush into, although obviously the girl was also cruel to him like the rest of the other. Have enough of it, Suteru decided to take the matter into his own hand by make full use of his power in order to get even at his bullies. Go get Mojika if you didn't mind the disturbing content and want to see what Nitroplus provide in the game, and have fun.
Cherry Kiss released their newest nukige, and no much to say other than it's about the teacher who was blackmailed into have sex with one of her male student (The MC) because he find the teacher in the sugar mama website. Hayasaki no Kuroyuri Kickstarter was finished, and it managed to gather around 15,000 dollars through the campaign. We have 40 out of 197 script files for Shizuku are edited, and we have Tsukikana updates after a while with the translator mention that finally the script translation is now nearly complete so hopefully we can see more Tsukikana progress later.
We have a little sister VN released, and said game is the aforementioned Countryside Siblings. What's worth to note is that the game was made by Onikiss director with he also bring the artist for it, so the art for Country Siblings is quite good. For the premise, it's about the nameless MC who need to take care of his sickly little sister Asumi, which really worth to mention is really blood related. Hearing their father was passed away leaving an inheritance, the sibling decided to move to the countryside if only for Asumi's sake seeing she has asthma with the polluted air will cause the attack. Starting new life is obviously not easy, but regardless the MC decided to do her best to keep taking care of his sister for the rest of his life with he'll have a lot of sex with Asumi. Unlike Onikiss, in here we have some gameplay with the MC has map movement in the game. Feel free to get Country Siblings if you're in the mood for little sister VN and waiting for Onigyu, and have fun.
Last but not the least, we have Irotoridori no Hikari translation patch release in which it's the sequel of Irotoridori no Sekai, although the one who release it is a random 4chan user instead of Nekonyan. While I said the sequel, actually it was initially mentioned as the fandisc thus make it the same as Nukitashi 2. I said that the first game should be complete, although I see some want to see more of the characters so obviously Hikari should be interesting to play for them, especially with Favorite put the effort on writing the after stories for all of the heroines compared to when they only focused on two heroines in Eternal Heart (Hoshimemo FD). Either way feel free to get Hikari if you want to see more of Irotoridori characters or want to see more of the setting, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For the title, because we have Nekonyan released Koichoco, I decided to make the parody of its English title (Love, Election, and Chocolate) by changing 'Election' into 'Invasion' from Rance 03 event (Helman invasion to Leazas) and 'Chocolate' into 'Marshmallow' with it being Mashiro's (Tayutama main heroine) favorite food, so we have 'Love, Invasion, and Marshmallow' as the title. For this week, the three releases alone (Koichoco, Rance 03, and Tayutama) make it being an active one, and of course we also have some other updates with the most notable one is Mahou Shoujo release. Overall, this week is quite an interesting one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Nekonyan did release Koichoco as planned, and honestly speaking to me it's redundant release seeing we have nine years old translation patch which was released in November 2015. That said, it still has nice production value, and Nekonyan version is much easier to install compared to the old version so at least you didn't need to go through the hassle to play the new version of Koichoco. For the premise, it's the same no matter which version, with the MC Yuki need to join a very dramatic student council election as the candidate in order to save his unproductive club which about to face financial reform. Forgot to mention the new version also remove the necessity to play Chisato's route first, although I don't know if that feature will be able to improve her not quite good reputation among the one who play Koichoco in 2016. Go get Koichoco from Steam if you want to play the VN with the new translation or maybe did decide to wait for Nekonyan version, and have fun.
Speaking of 2016, I do remember there's a project to translate Mahou Shoujo back then, although that project was going nowhere. Nevertheless, a new translator worked on it, and now we have the game available in English (The post in regard of the release). For the premise, it's about the normal high school girl Chiyoko who thrown into the battle against the monster after approached by a strange talking cat, and then she gather more allies in order to increase the manpower. While this seems like the usual premise of magical girl work, the outfit is more like the bodysuit instead of usual magical girl uniform with the aesthetic is leaned toward sci-fi, and the tone is quite heavy. It has SRPG gameplay and some people who played it praise the game, so you can try the game if you're curious about it.
Mangagamer released Rance 03, and it has the most distinctive feature with it the only Rance game that have voices with Alicesoft decided to omit that feature in X because X has many characters which would be very costly to dub all of the characters. Back to 03, in there we have Helman army led by the prince Patton invade Leazas. Seeing no choice, the rules of Leazas, Princess Lia, ask help from a certain adventurer that she knew, Rance. Of course, Rance asked for his reward immediately, which should be obvious revolving of having sex with the beautiful women. Rance 3 is the game where Alicesoft start to write the story in the bigger scale compared to the previous games that have smaller scale, and the remake is no different with Alicesoft going all out to polish the remake as much as possible with they also overhaul the gameplay. Go get 03 if you want to play Rance 3 in better graphic or maybe want to play another Rance game, and have fun.
We have Cherry Kiss announced yet another nukige (Swipe Right for Sugar Mama Sensei), and they'll release it on April 4th later. For fan translation updates, we have Shizuku is now fully translated, the original Tsui no Sora was past three quarter (76%) edited, and QC work for Ushieta is 73.8% done. We also have Cartagra Remake Switch version announced with it will have English language support, although the one who will release it is Visual Arts instead of Shiravune and obviously won't have sex scenes. For now, I can only wonder if Shiravune will also localized the PC version later.
Lastly, we have Tayutama released with it didn't have the sex scenes. However, someone (Who may or may not be the translation staff) make the 18+ patch for Tayutama and released it just today (Four days after the full game release), with it remind me of Baldr Sky 18+ patch release. For the story, it's about Yuuri who is a son of a priest about to perform a ritual in an ancient monument before it accidentally destroyed by his friend. Turned out the monument is the seal containing the spiritual creatures, Tayutai, thus the monument's destruction causing Tayutai to roam in the human world. Then, Yuuri saw a girl with her turned out to be a deity who manage Tayutai. Following that, Yuuri give the name to the new girl as Mashiro, and afterward Yuuri's life start to be more lively with Mashiro. While it's good now we have the 18+ patch, some may prefer to play Tayutama without the sex scenes, so feel free to get the VN if you interested (Whether with 18+ patch or not) and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we have Hentai Prison released I decided to make a parody of Jojo Part 6 setting namesake, On Green Dolphin Street, by changing 'Dolphin' into 'Tulip' from Hentai Prison's setting, Tulip Prison, so we have 'On Green Tulip Street' as the title. There's also another reason on why I made Jojo Part 6 reference, namely it's because both Jojo Part 6 and Hentai Prison settings are harsh prison with the MCs do their best for their survival in there. As for this week, obviously the biggest release that we have at this week is Hentai Prison, although we also have some re-releases of the VN that were translated by the fans in the past. Overall, this week is ended up to be very interesting, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Aksys dis release DesperaDrops, and it's about a Japanese girl who got mixed up in the murder cases before she ended up in fugitive with the six handsome criminals while she herself find out that she has superpower that was sought by another group. That, and it's only available on Switch so feel free to get it if you're want to have another otome VN in your Switch. Sekai has two updates, and the updates are in regard of both Nekopara 5 (Fully translated and edited with it's now in programming) and Wagahigh FD (90% translated). Shiravune has another release planned after they release Hentai Prison, and for the next release they planned to release Real Eroge Situation DT on 18th later so you can note the date if you've been waiting for it.
Visual Arts released Air, and it should goes without saying that it didn't have sex scenes (You can always picked the fan translated version if you want to see the sex scenes of Air). For the premise, it's still about Yukito who is a very poor wondering puppeteer who can control puppet without string with he do the journey to follow his mother last wish to find a girl in the sky. Then in a rural town near the sea, he met a cheerful girl, Misuzu, and he start to have relationship with her. Go get Air from Steam if you decided to hold up to not reading the fan translation of it until now, and have fun.
We have Never7 and Ever17 double package release, although Never7 release is pretty much redundant with we already have it fan translated by Lemnisca (Who work on Kara no Shoujo trilogy that Shiravune released) way back in 2012, and obviously it's still the same with the game at the beginning is like Memories Off (KID charage series) before the writer decided to sprinkle some science fiction story in the later parts. For Ever17, it's not as redundant as Never7 because Mages decided to localized XBOX 360 version with it has several changes in the writing. As for whether the change in writing is good or not, well I can only say it depend on whoever you asked although it seems the fan who've been playing the 2005 version of Ever17 didn't look at the remake fondly. In the end, I can only say that you can purchase the package if you want to play both seeing this is the only way to have easier time to get both of the VNs legally (The old version of both are quite hard to purchase), and have fun.
Last but definitely not the least, we have Shiravune released Hentai Prison with it is the third Qruppo's work after Nukitashi duology. Of course like Nukitashi, it should be obvious there's much more in the VN despite the very obvious title that won't be out of place in a nukige with the title is quite well received when it was released in Japan on 2022. In Hentai Prison, we have Shuuichiro who like to streaking naked in the public claiming that all he was do was in the name of art. Obviously, everyone won't be able to believe something like that, especially after he assaulted some of the police at the moment of his capture, so he was sentenced 10 years imprisonment in a very harsh prison called Tulip Prison. In there, we have Shuuichiro need to heed very rigid schedule and rule, and most of all anything that related to sex can't be allowed no matter what or else the offender would face very harsh punishment (Which is quite ironic because it make the setting is the reverse of Nukitashi duology), so Shuuichiro have a very hard time at the prison. Nevertheless, he did his best to adapting in the prison. Go get Hentai Prison if you've been waiting for it ever since it was released in Japan, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (25/08/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and for the title I'll tell it in the PS below. For this week, at the very least I can say it's more lively compared to the last week. For this week highlight, we have Mangagamer and JAST announce new title, although both of them didn't announce big title like Nekonyan. Other than new title announcements, we have Shiravune became slightly active with them finally announce the release time for Sacrifice Villain along with Daybreak released Majikoi Ryouken After. Overall, initially this week is an average one to me, although we also have one surprise big release two days ago, so I can say this week is an interesting one. Anyway, sorry for being late and let's see what I can write in regard of this week.
Aksys released Ihanashi no Majo on Switch, and they also announced the exact release date for PC version (October 22nd). For the premise, it's about the boy Hikaru who move to Okinawa in order to live together with his grandfather, although it's more like he's abandoned by his family because his grandfather was already fled before Hikaru came. In his first night on Okinawa where he search the place for him to sleep, he met the mysterious girl Lilun who is clearly not from Japanese despite her fluency. With both have nowhere to go, they decided to break into Hikaru's grandfather house and set it up as their residences. Few days later, Lilun was decided to reveal that she's a witch because of the emergency situation, with her fluence in Japanese is also thanks to magic. From what I can see, apparently there'll be many talks about Okinawan culture. Go get Ihanashi no Majo if you have Switch and want to play it (Or maybe wait until October 22nd if you only have PC), and have fun.
Both Mangagamer and JAST were announce new title, and Mangagamer decided to bring surprise announcement by announced two Empress VNs (Sleepless Midsummer Night's Dream and Sleepless Nocturne). As we know, both JAST and Shiravune have licensed Empress title, and it's quite surprising because Empress apparently prefer JAST looking from two of their VNs licensed by JAST (I can only say it's too bad the announcement is no Lewdness which would be interesting if only because it has female MC). Anyway, both title have male MC who have the meeting with very sexy rich woman Mamiya Marie, although obviously we can't say MCs have the best luck, especially if we know on how ruthless she can be in Starless. Regardless my opinion on both VNs, at least I can see the art is quite good thanks to Sei Shoujo. No info on the release date, but at least there'll be no mosaic if you're worry about it.
JAST released their VN from AX, and said VN is Seira. For the premise, it's about the male MC who is an office worker somehow have very strange dream with he always saw the maid Seira who always show her underwear. The MC tried to make use of the situation, and Seira being the good maid fulfill whatever the MC want, including to have sex in which Seira will do her best at it (Being nukige and all). The other notable thing is the art, with the artist also design the characters in both Shibukuzu and Manakashi, although obviously Seira is not have disturbing contents like those two. Go get Seira if you want maid nukige, and have fun. Back to the announcement, JAST announced Minagoroshi no Otome which is the newest VN from Dead End Aegis developer, so obviously there'll be magical girl have a lot of disturbing sex. Apparently it's about the female MC want to achieve her revenge with some GL romance between three couples, although I suspect there'll be tentacle sex scenes like in Dead End Aegis. No release date for English yet, because the VN itself is still not released yet with Japanese version will be released on October 25th later.
For fan translation, we have Kud Wafter suddenly have progress with it's all age version is at 79.4% translated, Taima Seiko Alice is past halfway (55%) edited, Karenai Saku is past three quarter (79%) edited, and Akagoei 3 editing is almost finished with it is at 98.65% edited. Daybreak just released Majikoi A Ryouken After, and from what I see it'll tell the story on how Yamato will have many moments with Margit (Because Ryouken After is the sequel of her after story) with he will have harem because of Margit's squad members all show the interest to Yamato. Not my interest even though it has harem ending and Minato Soft somehow make this as the only Majikoi with wide screen resolution (1280x720), but good for Majikoi fan to get another Majikoi spin-off. Oh yes, I know there's Sakura no Uta translation project, although I decided to not wrote about it until now. Seeing it now finally has sizeable progress (At 8% translated), I decided to keep my eyes on it from now on.
Shiravune finally show some activity in regard of Sacrifice Villains, and said activity is they manage to open the Steam store for it with the release time is said to be in Q4 of 2024 later (Up to December 31st later). Not really my interest, but let's see if Shiravune can release it before 2025. Speaking of Steam store, we also have Nekonyan manage to open the store for Kamikimi. Shiravune also announce one more VN, in which it's Real Eroge Situation DT with it's being nukige and telling us the reality of eroge MC with he will have a lot of sex with the girls around him (In this case five girls) even with he was called out as being unlucky. No release estimation as of now, so we need to wait for more news.
Last but not the least, we have Tsui no Sora Remake translation patch, which is definitely good news after a certain failed attempt. For Tsui no Sora itself, it's more or less very similar to the first half of Subahibi, in which SCA-JI obviously designed Subahibi as the 10th anniversary game of Tsui no Sora before change the time setting to match 2012 apocalypse trend (I never forget on how I find out the days in Subahibi is actually match July 2009 instead of July 2012). The premise is once again very similar with Subahibi, with we'll going to see the events before the upcoming dreaded July 20th, 1999 from multiple perspective. The remake itself is obviously very similar to the old Tsui no Sora and the first half of Subahibi save for one difference, namely the addition of Yasuko POV who is basically nobody in Subahibi (She has slightly bigger role in the original, although not by much). Forgot to mention the developers did their best to revamped the character arts, especially to Yasuko who look very cute compared to her original art. Feel free to get Tsui no Sora Remake translation patch if you want to play it, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and once again sorry for being very late here. See you next week.
PS - For the title, because we have Sakura no Uta translation project significant update along with Tsui no Sora Remake release, I decided to make the title as 'Sakura Philosophy' simply because Tsui no Sora Remake has a number of philosophy talk just like in Subahibi.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For the title, because we have the news from three GL VNs (Qianse, Hayasaki no Kuroyuri, and Clover Reset), I decided to combine all three into 'Red Clover's Tale' with it being the parody of English title of Hayasaki no Kuroyuri, Black Lily's Tale. As for where the word 'red' from, it's from Qiansi with it literally mean red-colored (Or Akaneiro in Japanese). As for this week, obviously this week is a breather after the last week with the fan translation bring a number of updates along with the aforementioned GL VNs updates, although it's also notable that both JAST and Nekonyan finally have the exact release date for their upcoming VNs (Mojika and Koichoco respectively). Overall, this week ended to be slightly above average, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
This time I decided to write a bit of Qianse, and for the VN itself it's Chinese GL VN with it also has English and Japanese language support. For Qianse, it's about a pair of woman who have been live together ever since their childhood to their adulthood, although the VN focused on the school part. Like many other GL VNs, the story is obviously focused on a single couple, although the developer surprisingly write the story quite long with it even had four endings. It also has some supernatural element, with one girl has meeting a mysterious person in her dream. Note that the developer did release the main game back at last Christmas with they also provided DLC that has released back on 1st. Feel free to try Qianse if you want a Chinese GL VN, or maybe just want to try GL VN in general.
I forgot to mention the news about Hayasaki no Kuroyuri, so I'll mention it now. For the news, it's about the staffs who decided to do the Kickstarter in order to fund the localization back on 1st (The link to Kickstarter page), and currently they already gather more than thrice of their goal at around 9,200 dollars with the initial goal is only at around 2,700 dollars with 13 days remaining. They also planned to deliver the translated game in December later, so let's see if they'll be able to do it later. The developer of Clover Reset launch its trial on Steam, and for the story it's about Marin who is a student of all-girl school got awestruck by the new transfer student Shizuku. Then, Marin find a clover that said to grant a wish if she pressing it in her student notebook. Marin's wish is very simple with she want to get closer with Shizuku, although turned out there are much more complicated situation between two girls. No release date for the full version as of now, and feel free to try the trial.
JAST finally have fix date for Mojika instead of another placeholder date, with them will release it on 31st later. Nekonyan also have the exact release date for Koichoco, with they'll release it on 28th later so feel free to note the date if you decided to wait Nekonyan version to play Koichoco instead of installing nine years old translation patch. From fan translation, we have 180 script files of Shizuku are translated, Sukiuso is currently in editing, and the original Tsui no Sora is at 62% edited. We also have the update from Junketsu Megami-sama with the team was done translating the main story contents with the other scenes remaining. Last but not the least, we have Sousaku Kanojo is at 35% edited along with Shinzou's new secret is at halfway translated with it's assets work is 10% done, and said secret project turned out to be Dekinai Watashi ga Kurikaesu with the MC has the power to traveling time to the past although he can't change the event that would be happened in the future.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Seeing that nowadays we have many translated VNs, I figure that it would be nice if I can write about some VNs that was translated in the past (Before 2015) because after all there's no present without the past. Also it's always interesting to see on how much the translated VNs did develop in the past and how we'll compared it with the present, so here's my list for translated VNs at 2009. The rules is still the same in that there'll be no BL, otome, fandisc, and nukige VNs here.
10. Galaxy Angel (VNDB 7.51)
My encounter with this was started back at 2006 when I spent my Saturday morning watching this through Animax, and back then I thought that it's like magical girl anime (Which apparently Kawamura (YPC5 duology, SmPC, and HugPC character designer) realized as well so much that she design some of her PreCures based on Galaxy Angel heroines). Fast forward to 2011, back then I'm still new in VNs and decided to ask some recommendations from someone, and one of those is Galaxy Angels in which it'd interest me. After that I'd search it and find out that the VN is very different from the anime in that the VN itself did have usual male MC, Tact, while the anime was a gag one with the staffs also butchered one of the heroine, Chitose. In the VN, we have our lazy MC Tact who is a lieutenant from a space empire. One day, the empire is destroyed thanks to a rebellious prince and suddenly Tact was handed the responsibilities to handle Angel Troupe squad which consist of five girls (Later six girls). From there, our Tact decided to handle the girls and hopefully be able to romance one of the girl while at the same time put down the prince's rebellion. For more info, this VN was came in trilogy, translated by Aroduc, and it have the gameplay in form of RTS combat with the player must control the Angel Troupe in order to beat the enemies.
9. Kira Kira (VNDB 7.54)
This is my second serious VN after Shuffle and it's the most shocking one, mostly because a certain ending that was very surprising to me back then (At 2010 iirc) because I expected a happy ending like Shuffle. As for the premise, we have our MC Shikanosuke who have a very bitter experkence in that he was dropped off by his girlfriend after his performance on tennis were dropping significantly, and that he's obviously very depressed by that. At least until he met with Kirari who is his friend at the part time job, and he got the chance to watch a rock show with Kirari. Fascinated, Shikanosuke decided to perform as bassist together with Kirari as the vocalist in a band. Other than Kirari, there's Shikanosuke's childhood friend Chie as the drummer and rich girl Sarina as the guitarist for Shikanosuke's band, and they decided to perform at the school festival which to say was quite a hurdle seeing that the school is a strict traditional Catholic school. This VN is also one of first Mangagamer releases, so the translation here might be less refined compared to what we have nowadays (Not that it matter to me anyway). For last note here, the staff here is show a lot of knowledge in music because the producer himself (Bamboo) is also a band member.
8. Kanon (VNDB 7.68)
Very popular VN from back at 1999 seeing that it did established nakige that was mixed with slice of life back then, and also put KEY as the most successful VN developer seeing that it'd adopted to the two anime series along with console ports. One from back at 2002 by Toei in that Yuuichi's (The MC) face is very distorted, and another one from back at 2006 by Kyoto Animation with improved graphic. Since this is very popular VN it mean that there's a lot of VN that was influenced by this, such as Kana Imouto and Da Capo. As for the art, while granted Inoue's art is quite infamous at least it's not as bad like back at Koropokkur. As for the premise, we have Yuuichi coming back to the town where his aunt live after his last visit back at seven years ago, and that he forgot what happened back at his last visit. In there he met with a mysterious girl with the name Ayu, and then Yuuichi started to play more with Ayu while finding out what happened back at seven years ago. Other than Ayu, Yuuichi will encounter four other girls including his cousin (Nayuki), so we'll going to have five heroines in Kanon (Duh). As for the sex scenes, let's just say that you shouldn't play Kanon for the sex scenes even though it was initially sold as eroge.
7. Aoishiro (VNDB 7.75)
The most graphically beautiful VN when it's translated back at 2009, and I think it's still can be on par with nowadays VNs graphically wise. Also since this is ported from the console (PS2), obviously there'll be no sex scenes. The premise is goes like one day our female MC Shouko as the kendo club captain going to the Southern area in order to do the training camp, and that the area itself did have the legend in regard of the demon extermination. At night Shouko saw some mysterious beautiful girl got washed at the shore, and little did Shouko know back then that the girl did have a lot of connection between the legend and Shouko herself. While the story did have a lot of action and supernatural element, there's also a lot of food talk so you may dislike that element. Although the most infamous thing that this VN did have a lot of endings with only five of them were good, so the guide is very neccesary if you want to avoid the bad endings. That said the technical aspect of Aoishiro here is definitely very good, like the aforementioned graphic and also the music in that one of those resembled one of Ar Tonelico 1 hymnos song (Same singer as well). Almost forget to say that this is a GL VN, and there'll be a lot of fights.
6. Sekien no Inganock -What a Beautiful People- (VNDB 7.84)
The second Amaterasu's work after Cross Channel, and one that was based on the poll. Back then Ixrec decided to ask the reader to do the poll in order to determine which next VN that he want to translated, and out of many candidates Inganock here came as the first one in the poll. And so we have Inganock being translated here which also mark the first 'What A Beautiful' Steampunk VN series that was translated into the English (There's also Sona-Nyl that was localized by Mangagamer as well). As for the writer it's said that Sakurai Hikaru here is like to write in repetition, so it's inevitable if someone dislike that kind of writing especially with the Strictly Formula that Inganock have (At least the art here is looking very artistic with the watercolor and sketchbook look). As for Inganock's premise, we have Gii who is an illegal doctor who recover the poor for free and that he live in a city that was affected by mysterious phenomenon known as Revival, in which it caused some disturbance in that some of human being were mutated into part animal. Gii as the one who still looking normal decided to look into the town's mystery along with his old friend (Ati) who's been mutated into the catgirl and a mysterious girl (Kia) that Gii encountered. Almost forget that if you want full voice, you can play the Full Voice version that was already translated as well.
5. Saya no Uta (VNDB 8.01)
The third translated Nitroplus VN after Phantom of Inferno and Chaos Head with the former was written by the same writer (Gen Urobochi), and the background for this VN is the most creepy one with meat and all. The premise goes like we have Fuminori was saved by a brain operation after he suffered a fatal accident, only to have his perception was twisted thanks to the possible mistake in the operation and that he perceive the other human as grotesque creature with inaudible voice. Of course Fuminori being paranoid that he'll become the experiment subject, he decided to not tell his story to the doctor. One day in the hospital he see a young girl in white cloth with the name Saya, and seeing that Fuminori already goes insane thanks to his perception he just accept Saya as it is without wondering what Saya really is. From there both of Fuminori and Saya did the things that is normal in Urobochi's work, and let's just say it'll full of death and all because Urobochi like to killing the characters in his works (Just see both of Fate/Zero and Madoka, in which both of those are his famous works). This VN also picked up and rereleased by JAST at 2011, although it's a redundant release though because there's no change between fan translation and official version.
4. Sharin no Kuni Himawari no Shoujo (VNDB 8.17)
While we have Frontwing crowdfund this VN and they still didn't managed to deliver it, actually we didn't really need to wait in order to play this because we already have Sharin being translated since back at 2009 (ie redundant). If anything at least Frontwing still managed to give us the updates, unlike Sekai who more or less already abandoned their Yuzusoft VNs license. As for the premise, we have a very capable MC Morita Kenichi who come back to his hometown in order to supervise three criminals who coincidentally are girls with one of the girls was his childhood friend as told by his supervisor who also happened to be his teacher. From there, Kenichi did his best to supervise the girls. As for the setting, it's a unique one in that each criminal would be punished by wearing the badge and the wearer must bey the condition that the badge impose, otherwise the criminal would be severely punished. Naturally it mean that Kenichi will find out what's really happening in the girl's life that cause them to face the punishment, and it's Kenichi's job to improve the girls situations. As of Sharin itself, I guess it's quite influential in that Yuuji from Grisaia franchise did resemble Kenichi to a degree, and that both of Sharin and Grisaia did have the fandisc that resolve the story in the main VN.
3. Sengoku Rance (VNDB 8.34)
The first Rance series to be translated (By Takajun), and also the first Alicesoft VN to be translated. As for the premise, it's very simple with our selfish Rance want to have sex with two princesses and one of his target is Kouhime who happened to be JAPAN's princess (Or Nippon's princess as Arunaru translate it), only to found out that Kouhime was still underage and Rance still have some standard to not going lolicon. After being fast friend with Kouhime's brother Nobunaga (Yeah that Oda Nobunaga), Rance decided to help him to conquer some Nippon territories seeing that his heath is very bad along with his territory is declining and our Rance didn't want to see Kouhime being sad. Like other Rance series, Sengoku here did have gameplay element and after I see some LP of previous Rance VNs along with playing VI I can say that Alicesoft here really refined their gameplay element in here (It also help that Sengoku did set up the big Myth Arc for the franchise despite the lighter premise compared to VI). We also have this being localized by Mangagamer and retranslated by Arunaru, although seeing that there's no much problem with the translation (And Arunaru's reputation as translator is slightly gotten worse) I can say that Sengoku's license by Mangagamer here is a redundant one (At least it's nice that people can get this in English legally).
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (VNDB 8.54)
Once upon a time, there's man who was inspired by KEY's VNs. And thus he created a doujin VN that was attempted to recapture the success, but instead of nakige element the man decided to add horror and paranoia instead (With the man's drawing that was very bad). Also like KEY, his product is very successful so much that it became the man's Cash Cow Franchise. As for the man, he's Ryukishi07 and the product is obviously Higurashi. As for the premise, we have Keiichi who transfer to a rural town called Himanizawa and he managed to be friend with some unique girls. While at first Hinamizawa is very calm and relaxing, beneath that there's a lot of covered secrets that may cost a life to be uncovered, and our Keiichi was realized that as well. And so Keiichi decided to investigate what's really happen in the peaceful Hinamizawa, although too bad that his investigation was already doomed to be failed. Again and again. As for Higurashi itself, it's divided into eight arcs and the first part did covered the four arcs. As for the opening song here, since the original didn't have the opening I'll use Matsuri one (It's very good anyway). Almost forget that Mangagamer did localized this, and if you didn't like the default arc you can use the art from PS3.
1. Umineko no Naku Koro ni (VNDB 8.84)
After being successful with Higurashi, Ryukshi07 decided to tackle another new series in When They Cry and this time he'd write about murder mystery. The premise goes like there's a very rich family that was trapped in the secluded island because of the storm. To make it worse turn out that each of the head's children did have some slight financial problem and the only solution to resolve their problem is a mysterious fortune that the head hide (Also rumored to be borrowed from the witch (Beatrice)). Things not going to be easy seeing that the clue to find the fortune is like a murder pattern, and all of the siblings are more than likely to commit the murder because they are very hostile to each other. As for who is the MC for Umineko, we have Battler (The head's grandson) who was challenged by Beatrice who claimed that she can kill the whole family using the magic. Refused to believe in magic, Battler decided to challenge Beatrice into a game of wits in that he must proof that it's possible for human to do the crime. Like Higurashi, Umineko here is also localized by Mangagamer with the help of a fan group (Witch Hunt) back at 2017, although it's redundant though because there's already a patch to insert PS3 art and Ryukishi's drawing is still bad (He improved at least), and of course already translated.
I guess that's all for 2009 translated VNs, and as you can see most of those are still fan translated (Eight out of 10 VNs) so we can say that 2009 here is the start of fan translation golden era. Also back then Mangagamer was just starting their operation, so it's normal for them to have little number of released VNs (ie Kira Kira and Higurashi) compared to what we have nowadays. Also back then we obviously still didn't have Sekai yet and JAST did release less compared to the last years, so yeah thanks to the fans we can have a lot of good translated VNs whereas most people would categorized VNs as the porn games back at 2009. As for the next plan, I think I'll cover the translated VN release from 2010 up to 2014.
PS - For the title I decided to joined two animal that was noted in both of 'When They Cry' series, and since we have both of cicada from Higurashi and seagull from Umineko I joined two animal into 'When the Sand Crabs Cry'. The reason is simply because sand crabs is also known as sea cicada, and besides it's not the first time someone use 'Umi' part from Umineko seeing that we have When the Seacats Cry doujin VN (TL Note: Umi mean sea).
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and for the title because we have Harumade Kururu release delayed along with Visual Arts announced Air exact release date, I decided to make a reference one of Air's OST, Summer Lights, by changing 'Summer' into 'Spring' (Because Harukuru is represent spring), so we have 'Spring Lights' as the title. Anyway, for this week obviously the notable news are both Harukuru delay and Air English version announcement, although we also have Shiravune released Primal Hearts duology on Steam. Overall, this week is a plain one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Sekai decided to delay Harukuru release to the unknown date because they suddenly find the issues that need to be worked on. While admittedly encounter big issues before the release is certainly not new (ie Sakura Celebration), I do find the issue that crop up in Harukuru is a bit too convenient, especially with Sekai still negotiating with the license holder regarding of the 18+ assets, and not to mention the staffs post the xeet celebrating the release one day before February 14th (Which admittedly also has a layer of bad planning). Regardless, I have nothing to say other than hopefully Sekai can resolve the issue in Harukuru and finally manage to release it, either in the very near future or sometimes later. Of course, it would be better if they already manage to get the right for 18+ assets by the release time.
Shiravune did release Primal Hearts duology on Steam and some other stores, so feel free to get the duology if you've been waiting for Steam release just because getting it on Johren is too cumbersome. They also have plan to release Mashimaro on Steam, although there's still no release date for those yet (The link to the Steam store). Nekonyan did open the pre-order for Koichoco, so you can now order the game if you've been decided to get it from Nekonyan just because it would be easier to install. Like I say earlier, Visual Arts announced Air release, although obviously we already have it translated for 10 years so to me it would be redundant release. That said, if you want to get the Steam version of it in its store, then you can note the exact release date with it will be released on March 5th later.
I know the progress for Sakura no Uta is still at halfway translated, although I figure I should inform the detail here. For the detail of Sakura no Uta translation, Shizuku's route is at 85% translated, Zypressen & Marchen (Rina's route) is at 1% translated, Chapter 5 is at 93% translated, and Chapter 6 is at 12% translated. For the reminder, Sakura no Uta has six chapters with Chapter 3 was dedicated to the character routes (Rin, Makoto, Rina, and Shizuku). Lastly, we have Studio Frisay finished Ushieta editing work with the remaining works now are some miscellaneous stuffs before the patch ready to releases, with those works are image editing (Including UI), video editing, QC, and play-testing with it to find the possible remaining bugs. In any case, at least it mean the wait for Ushieta to be available in English is almost done, so you can look forward to the patch if you've been waiting for eight years ever since it was translated by another group with said group dropped it later.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
After 2010, the next year is 2011 so obviously I'll cover 2011 releases. As for this year, it's still more calm here (Ixrec's debacle with Mangagamer in regard of age and Liar-soft aside) although there's a lot of very good VNs here so it's another interesting years (I remember that when I idly browse TLWiki and suddenly find out that Little Busters patch was released, and back then it's one of highly anticipated VN). The rule is still the same in that there'll be no nukige, BL, and otome here. So let's see what releases that we have for 2011 here below.
10. Quartett (VNDB 7.18)
Unlike Littlewitch later release Period in which the characters have Japanese name, in Quartett it looks fitting because the developer make the setting in Europe (It definitely help that the character design being beautiful and have European looks). Also unlike Period with it using standard ADV, in here Littlewitch make use of the Floating Textbox with the textbox will appear near the characters make it looks like a manga. For the story, it's about the MC who is a violinist and about to join the competitive selection with he formed the group with three other girls forming a quartet of the string, and the MC group must compete with the other 23 other quartets with the winner will get a big prestige. Of course the road to success won't be easy seeing each casts have their problems, but nevertheless they did their best to facing it. Note that initially the PC version didn't have the voice with the voice was available in PS2 version, so obviously there won't be voices in the sex scenes seeing Littlewitch need to remove it in order to released it at PS2. For the info about the video below, actually it's not really opening but rather it's the demo video which available in the developer's website, although the song is still nice anyway which is appropriate for the VN with the focus on the music.
9. Katahane (VNDB 7.37)
At first we can see this as GL VN, although turn out that there's male and female relationship so Katahane here is not full GL VN. As for the premise, we have Wakaba who write a play based on a well known history, only that she decided to portray a well known traitor as someone who love his country. Seeing that she would have hard time to search for the actors, she decided to tag along with Cero who have his own business to do the journey. After that they began the journey and along the journey they met new people such as Belle and Angelina, and in the journey they may learn something about the real truth of the history. As for the art, to me Angelina here is good looking and the background is also good as well thanks to minori. Almost forget to add that Katahabe here have multiple MC, and the POV will change a lot. We also will have JAST release this at autumn later, and as for the version that they chose they'll release the updates version. Although seeing that apparently there's no new story (They only have new opening and graphic update), I think I can say that Katahane release will be redundant here. Granted that the new opening of Katahane here is not bad, although it's not like the older one is not sufficient here. If anything, at least people can get Katahane legally if JAST really will release it later.
8. Zanmataisei Demonbane aka Deus Machina Demonbane (VNDB 7.44)
The second Nitroplus title to be officially translated after Phantom of Inferno, and also the first Nitroplus title localized by JAST. As for the premise, we have our MC Daijuuji Kuruo who drop his study university and after that he work as private detective with less than ideal income. One day he suddenly got a girl client (Ruri) and turn out that Ruri is the heir of mega conglomerate, and Ruri hire Kurou to find a grimoire because the town face a threat from a villain called group called Black Lodge which consist of Master Therion together with his cadres. When Kurou did his investigation, he stumbled upon a little girl who called herself as Al-Azif aka Al. Suddenly one of Black Lodge cadre goes attacking the town using a giant robot, and obviously Kurou is run away. At least until he stumbled into a giant robot which turned out to be the titular Demonbane and Al urge Kurou to pilot it. Seeing that there's no choice, Kurou board the Demonbane and Al reveal that she able to control Demonbane because she herself is a grimoire called Necronomicon. After ward away the cadre, both of Kurou and Al decided to work together to fight Black Lodge. It's worth to note that there's a lot of Cthulthu element in here, in which it's already prominent with the aforementioned Necronomicon.
7. Corpse Party BloodCovered (VNDB 7.50)
As for this VN, it's too bad that only PSP version that have well known seiyuu while for PC version we have less known seiyuu. I guess they also need to deal with the license cost as well if they want to port PSP voice so there's not much that we can do, and besides the rereleased PC version did have missing chapter that was unavailable at the PC anyway so the PC version is more or less better feature wise. Anyway the premise here is we have a bunch of high school student did tell the scary stories to each other, and scaring one of them to a degree. When they abut to going home, suddenly a mysterious earthquake strike and suddenly the students find themselves at a ruin of an elementary school. To make it worse, turned out that there's some ghost who sought the revenge and she'll kill the students. So there's no choice for the students other than try to survive and hopefully escape from the ruin, which easier said than done. Almost forget that this is horror VN in case you didn't catch it from the title, and that it was created by RPGMaker so you'll see some sprite movement in the VN (You may reminded older SNES RPG if you see the sprite). Apparently Corpse Party here is quite popular, so much that it spawn several sequel so good for the creator there.
6. Shikkoku no Sharnoth -What a Beautiful Tomorrow- (VNDB 7.53)
The second Liar-soft VN to be translated by Amaterasu (ie Ixrec), and also the second 'What a Beautiful' Steampunk VN to be translated as well. As for Sharnoth's setting here unlike Inganock that was a fantasy one and not based on the real life location, this time we're going to have slightly realistic setting with alternative London at 1905 with the dark sky thanks to smoke and all. Sharnoth here is also notable with our MC here in which it's a female one and that her name is Mary Clarissa Christie, or in her real life she's more well known as Agatha Christie. Of course seeing that it's Steampunk VN we wouldn't see on how Mary brainstorming the idea for her detective novels, but instead we'll see on how suddenly she trapped in another world that was infested by monster and on how she'll need to constantly escape from the monsters with a help from a mysterious man called M who is quite enigmatic himself in that he might be connected to the monsters. This VN is also notable for the translation, in that it's using British English which only logical seeing that the setting is in London. Also like other Steampunk VN, Sakurai here is still like to write Strictly Formula so you need to prepare for that. Almost forget that like Inganock, Sharnoth also already have Full Voice version already translated as well.
5. Kara no Shoujo (VNDB 8.03)
Back at 2010, a group that translate this VN at TL Wiki got C&D notice from Innocent Grey. One year later, the group got confirmation that Innocent Grey would willingly work together with Mangagamer to localized Kara no Shoujo. Although too bad though that the release did have problem, namely the voices is missing because apparently it's too costly to add. At least there's fan patch to alleviate the problem, and sometimes later Mangagamer did rerelease this with the voices available. As for the premise, it's quite depressing with our Reiji face his wife's death at the hand of crazy serial killer. One day, he accept a request from a mysterious girl that asked him to find her true self. After that, he also accepted two jobs in regard of a disturbing serial killing and the disappearence of all girl school students, so Reiji decided to work as the teacher while at the same time investigate the serial killing case. At the school Reiji met the mysterious girl who then introduce herself as Kikuchi Touko, and then two of them become friends despite the difference in age. As for the ending, seeing that we already knew that Reiji was down at the beginning of the sequel (Kara no Shoujo 2), it should be obvious that this VN ended on a bitter note so poor Reiji can't catch a break in misfortune here (Hopefully his end will be better in Kara no Shoujo 3).
4. Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO (VNDB 8.07)
Graphically wise I prefer the graphic from the older version of this sci-fi VN, because at least it's not as bad as When They Cry original graphic. I understand though if some people did prefer the newer graphic and that they wait for the remake to be released at October 1st later, although it's not like it's necessary to get the remake if you already content with the older graphic seeing that the gameplay did have almost zero change. As for the premise, we have our MC Takuya who one day before the summer vacation Takuya got a mysterious package which a mysterious device from his late father. Seeing that there's something fishy behind it, Takuya decided to investigate it and hopefully will be able to untangled the mystery behind it. I also like to note that both of the director and composer of YU-NO were already passed away (My condolence to both of them), so obviously there's no way that we can get the new story from the original creator in the remake. As for the remake, while I didn't agree with the seiyuu change in that there's no 17 years old step mother heroine in the remake (Kikuko Inoue did provide Ayumi's voice at the older version, and Ayumi here is Takuya's step mother) even though there's might be a valid reason for that (Such as the contract matter), I still agree that the new opening is quite good so I'll post it below.
3. Little Busters (VNDB 8.63)
In his childhood Riki (The MC) lost his parents, and one day a cool boy (Kyousuke) ask him to join his gang and introduce the gang as Little Busters. From there our Riki was enjoying his days together with his friends up until the high school, and one day Kyousuke decided to do baseball. Seeing that Little Busters only have five members and baseball team need nine people, it's up to Riki for searching the rest of the member which consist of the heroines. Of course seeing that it's KEY VN, nothing as happy as it looks even though there's a lot of funny moments in the common route. We also have this rereleased back at 2017, although in this case it's not as redundant as previous examples seeing that the new release did add the additional routes that was available in the 18+ version (Originally Little Busters is all age VN). Granted that the rerelease version didn't have sex scenes, but it's not like it's a big loss anyway seeing that it's KEY VN and we know on how incompatible KEY VN with the sex scenes. I also like to note that Kyousuke seiyuu here is Midorikawa Hikaru, and his roles is usually handsome man. One thing for sure Kyousuke here is surely almost as cool and handsome as Sakamoto (Same seiyuu), so much that some people lauded him as the main heroine even though he's obviously male.
2. Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru (VNDB 8.96)
I know that Umineko's ending here was not quite satisfying for majority of the people, although it's very surprising to see though on how harsh the score was dropping in Erogamescape for EP8 alone (At 58 average score compared to the previous EPs which usually at around more than 80 average score). What I can say is that at least the ending is not as inconclusive as Remember11, and that there's the manga which solve the remaining mystery of Umineko here. The premise here is simple though, in that it continuing Battler struggle with his family murder, only this time he got some new perspective from the witch's side along with the arrival of new antagonists. For comparison with Higurashi, there's a reason on why Chiru here is called as Core arc instead of Kai which is called as Answer arc, because there's no clear cut answer in Umineko and that the reader must figure out the answer by themselves. As for the anime, DEEN only adapted the first part which obviously left the anime inconclusive so much people call it bad adaptation. Mangagamer was also rereleased this as well, but it's a redundant one anyway seeing that we already can play this with PS3 graphic and voices as well.
1. Muv-Luv Alternative (VNDB 8.99)
One day Takeru was suddenly find themselves go back to the time before the whole world was destroyed, and that he remember the world that he was in was invaded by the scary alien (BETA) leaving the Earth population to only a billion. Seeing that there's no choice, he decided to go to the military base in his town and use his past knowledge to fix the problem. In case you have the hard time to understand the premise, all of that was happened in the prequel (Muv Luv) so it's necessary to play the prequel to understand the premise (If you're not spoiled) in which it might be very time consuming. But it's worth it though seeing that Alternative here is the best VN that currently was ranked first in Bayesian score at VNDB, and it's also very well received in Japan seeing that very well known Attack on Titan franchise was inspired by this. We also have this rereleased back at 2017 in that it's a redundant one unless you prefer the newer translation, although at least it have Gallery menu in that somehow age manage to forget to put that on the older version. Speaking about age, honestly I mind it very much that age was milking Muv Luv too much and that they can only make VN that was pretty much a fandiscs of Alternative. Although seeing that there's a lot of bankrupt VN companies, perhaps it's the smartest strategy to survive.
That's all for my 2011 list, and in this year we have JAST being more active with Demonbane release here. As for the next list, I'll combined both of 2013 and 2014 lists seeing that some releases did overlapped between those two years. I hope that you'll like my list here.
PS - For the title, I decided to parodied yet another Attack on Titan spin-off seeing that Alternative here is the VN that inspired Attack on Titan writer (Ishiyama Hajime), and this time it's 'Attack on Titan: Junior High'. I know that it would be more fitting to use 'High School' here, although we already have high school setting at original Muv Luv anyway. So instead I decided to just change 'Titan' to 'BETA' in the original title for a very obvious reason, which somehow still fitting anyway seeing that one of Corpse Party main characters is a junior high student.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and since we have a certain magical girl nukige along with Hentai Prison announced by Shiravune, I decided to make a magical girl anime from this season (Autumn 2024), Acro Trip, with I changed 'Trip' into 'Prison', so we have 'Acro Prison' as the title. As for this week, well if not for Shiravune being active it would be a plain week seeing there's no much to talk at this week. As for the announcement, while Hentai Prison is admittedly big announcement looking from how well received it is, it didn't really surprising seeing Shiravune accidentally leaked it one week before the formal announcement. Other than Shiravune being active, we also see Mangagamer finally announce the exact release date for one of their VN, and we have Mages announce the remaster for both Never7 and Ever17 with both will be available in English. Overall, this week is another below average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
The aforementioned magical girl nukige that Shiravune announced was ExS-Tia in which it's the series of magical girl nukige, although Shiravune announced the new one, ExS-Tia Concerto 1, instead of the older one, which make sense if we see it took Palette remake Mashiro Iro to have Shiravune localized it. It also should be noted that Concerto is the new series of ExS-Tia, so there's no need to play the older version before starting it. For the premise, it's about Haruno who is an ordinary girl was suddenly encounter a monster and then got a mysterious device that allow her to transform into magical girl, and turned out the people in the city can be possessed by a Guilt Seed with the possessed person turned into the monster. After fighting the monster, Haruno was asked to search for Guilt Seed, and so she tried her best to do so. Note that while I mentioned this as magical girl nukige, actually you can avoid all of the sex scenes with Haruno's virginity remain intact until the ending. Since this is the first part of the tetralogy, I hope Shiravune will announce the rest of Concerto VNs. No release date mentioned for this, although we'll most likely see the release in the next year.
Mangagamer finally announced the exact release date for one of their VN, although unfortunately said release is not either Raillore or Ixseal, but instead it's Sex Open World with it will be released on December 19th later. Well admittedly it has good graphic which is a requirement for a nukige, although I'm not sure whether I should feel excited or not. Regardless, feel free to note the date if you're interested with it. We also have LingerieS developer announce the new release time, and they'll try to release it by the next month, December, so let's see if we can see the release next month. We also have the translator finally finished Taima Seiko Alice translation, with the translator need to take care the remaining works for both editing and proofreading before finally release it.
Mages announce the remaster for both Never7 and Ever17, although somehow they skipped over Remember11 for some reasons. My first reaction of the announcements is redundant seeing both already have translation, with Never7 was translated by Lemnisca when they still fan group and Ever17 was translated by Hirameki in 2005. That said, seeing some comments on how rough Hirameki translation is along with Mages will use XBOX360 version which has new script that has some changed for better or worse, perhaps Ever17 here won't be so redundant after all, and if anything else they planned to use the sprites from the original PC version instead of the jarring XBOX360 version. Since Ever17 premise is widely known, I'll just write a bit about Never7 in which it would be better to expect this as Memories Off series with dramatic sci-fi twist at the end instead of full sci-fi story. Oh yes, Mages already have the exact release date for the remaster, with it will be released on March 6th of the next year.
Last but not the least, we have Shiravune announced they manage to get Hentai Prison license, which honestly speaking it's not surprising seeing they leaked the announcement a week beforehand, and even then it's not really surprising seeing Nukitashi sales on Steam show some big number so it's pretty obvious Qruppo will ask Shiravune to localize their Hentai Prison with it currently far more well received compared to Nukitashi duology with it already have good receptions. Still, it's nice of Qruppo to have all their VNs are available in English after they're almost failed to do so with Sol Press going out of business back when they still have Nukitashi's license. Anyway, for the premise we have the MC Shuuichiro who believe the best way of expressing the art is by being naked in the public, although unfortunately for him most of the people didn't share his opinion so he became the repeat offender before being arrested after assaulting the police. Seeing Shuuichiro didn't show the regret, the judge sentence him 10 years imprisonment in the worst prison, Tulip Prison. As for the exact release date, Shiravune only mention it'll be sometimes in the next year, so let's wait and see for the news later.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Following my list of translated VNs at 2009, I decided to follow up with 2012 translated VNs list. Also yeah I decided to talk about 2012 first even though I'm supposed to talk about 2010 list, because back at 2012 there's some decline in fan translation and yet there's still no increase from the official release, and I think it might be the best if I'm focused on the hard year first. Regardless the different order here, the rule is still the same in that there's no BL (Togainu no Chi), nukige (Monster Girl Quest 2), otome (The Second Reproduction), and fandisc (Tomoyo After (Sort of)) here. As usual let's see what I can write in regard of 2012 VNs list here.
10. Never7 - The End of Infinity- (VNDB 6.80)
The last of Infinity trilogy to be translated after Ever17 and Remember11, and it's the most lighthearted one seeing that this is the first part of the trilogy, so it's understandable if someone find that this VN is more leaned toward moege a la Memories Off in the beginning instead. Although like other Infinity series, this VN did have Arc Number though and in this case it's 7. As for the premise we have our MC Makoto who was attend an extra seminar at the resort island thanks for him being tardy at the university, and that he saw a dream where he saw a girl was dead at April 6th. After he woke up, he realized that the date was at April 1st so essentially Makoto did have five days to figure whether his dream will be really happen at Aprl 6th or not, and if it would be happen what kind of action that Makoto should take to prevent the tragedy. This work was also mark the first work of Lemnisca, in that back then GundamAce also post this translation project back at TL Wiki. As for my comment here, it would be better if we expect this as moege instead of hardcore sci-fi VN so that we wouldn't be disappointed here, seeing that the sci-fi element only appear at the later part of the VN. Oh yes, this is the first VN on the list that has score 6.
9. Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru aka Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling for Me! (VNDB 7.00)
I admit that I add this onto the list because of my interest toward the MC being trap (Especially with him good looking in female outfit lol), and more importantly it's still rare to see this kind of VN to be translated. As for the premise our MC Mizuho that was voiced was told to attend a school by his late grandfather to fulfill his last wish, in that he want his grandson attend the same school as the late Mizuho's mother. Of course nothing as simple as it seems because turned out that Mizuho's mother did attend all girl school and that Mizuho is a male, although with the help of his cousin (Mariya) there's no problem at all though seeing that she just do a make up to Mizuho and it fit very perfectly seeing that Mizuho is already have female like appearence. And thus begin Mizuho's adventure in the all girl school in that turned he managed to fool almost all students except for one people (Shion, who also act as the other Secret Keeper after Mariya), and that he was adored by all girls as their onee-sama. As for Otoboku itself here while granted it's quite underrated compared to similar title such as Tsukiyori, it's very nice to see that we can have VN that have trap MC with the female heroines such as this one here being translated.
8. Period (VNDB 7.13)
Out of all Littlewitch VNs that were translated, only Period here that did have Japanese place setting or to be exact the place setting was at Nagasaki which is very notable because usually their VN did have European setting (ie Romanesque and Quartett). The other matter is that the art here is not very fitting seeing that Littlewitch's usual artist (Ooyarii Ashito) was in charge of the characters design, and let's just say that his design here is not fitting for the Japanese setting despite being beautiful there (And let's not forget that the characters did have Japanese name while at the same time did have Euorpean look). As for the premise, we have our male MC Mitsuki who supposedly did have a boring life and have been seeing vague disturbing dream. At least until one day when he get the key to the observation (Or to be exact Mitsuki was forced to accept it), and after that he did have his fated encounter that was cause Mitsuki's days become more exciting in that he can date one of the eight heroines here. Anther interesting things to note is that we'll going to have angel heroine here, in that the appearance of the angel here is also one of the plot point here. What I can say is that if you didn't like the story here, at least you can play for the art in which it's quite beautiful.
7. Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni - Dai Ichi Ya aka Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni - The First Night (VNDB 7.30)
This time our Ryukishi07 decided to create the novel, and turned out that he didn't managed to achieve satisfactory result for that seeing that it was cancelled. After that he tried to adapt it into the manga as well, only to have it cancelled as well. And thus he decided to create the VN of that, which in turn it's the best version here seeing that it did have music and that (Well 07Expansion VNs always did have good OST). As for the art, while it's still not as good as usual VN at least it's not so bad and that it somehow very fitting. For the premise, we have one bullied girl (Marie) was offered to be the 8th youkai at the school, and that Marie was offered by the titular Higanbana who is one of the youkai. From there we'll see on how Higanbana going through the school that did have seven youkai who ruled over The Seven Mysteries, and eventually knowing more about Higanbana herself. As for the release, the VN was divided into two part and the first part was released back at 2012 while for the second part it was released at 2014. Almost forget to say that Higanbana here is more or less a compilation of the short story so we'll going to have multiple MCs here, although Higanbana here is remain the most important character here (Her title and all).
6. Dengeki Stryker (VNDB 7.32)
This VN is a unique one in that it did have two releases and thus two opening. The premise is goes like we have our MC Yamato who is a big fan of the shounen manga (The title drop), and that he formed his personality in that he have a lot of sense of justice. Although too bad that he always fail to protect his childhood friend Haruna so much that he always feeling down because of that. Nevertheless Haruna was always grateful for what Yamato did and she felt so sad when she must move from Yamato neighborhood, and of course Yamato can't accept that. After Haruna announced her move away, Yamato met with the Memory Collector that willing to grant any wish in exchange for his memories, and seeing that he was still a child he decided to make his wish to become the hero of his favorite manga. Thus Yamato became Stryker Zero and at the same time he must fight the enemies that he was inadvertently bring from the manga.
As for this VN, unlike both of Kira Kira and Deardrops this time Overdrive decided to go with write about cliche shounen superhero story, and it show. As for the release, we have two releases in that first we have Dengeki Stryker with only three routes available, and then we have Chou version in that it expand the story by adding three routes (Two of Chou's route did have dating the antagonist routes). Also since Dengeki Stryker here is more or less created like cliche shounen manga, it's easy to forget that this is eroge as well so it's easy to surprised by the sex scenes (We shouldn't focused on that anyway). As for both of the opening, I must say that Masaki Endou here did the good job for both of those and that those two opening really fit the atmosphere of the VN itself (Hot blooded).
5. Duel Savior (VNDB 7.38)
One of Aroduc's works, and obviously it'll be a gameplay VN (Which in here it's fighing games). For the premise, we have our MC Taiga who is live alone together with his brocon stepsister Mia. One day, Mia find out a mysterious book. After that, both of them were suddenly teleported into another world (Avatar) and then one of the people who summoned them tell Mia that she was chosen as the Savior candidate. Seeing the summoned savior in the past is always female, they decided to test Taiga in order to determined whether he really fulfill the the criteria as Savior candidate or not, and turned out that he was passed because he can summon his weapon. From there both of Mia and Taiga attend the Savior school in order to prepare them to save Avatar. We can say Duel Savior story here is amounted to be usual isekai story, which is more unique than it sounds seeing that surprisingly the story where the hero was summoned into another world and gathered the harem are very rare in the VNs. Also like Baldr Force Duel Savior has PS2 port, and Aroduc brought PS2 voices and contents into PC version, so you can hear the voice of both Nabatame Hitomi and Shizuka Ito (Who voiced two heroines in PS2 version) if you want.
4. Forest (VNDB 7.43)
As for this VN, instead of usual Sakurai Hikaru who usually write for Liar-soft we have Hoshizora Meteor (His works (Kusarihime) was said to inspired well known VN such as Saya no Uta and Cross Channel), and also this VN is the sixth work of Amaterasu while at the same time third Liar-soft VN to be translated. Also apparently this VN did have a lot of Mind Screw and Metafiction or something like that, so you'll need to think a lot when you play this. Even then you may not understand any of that, because there's no exact answer for the story so you must figure the answer by yourself. That aside, at least I can understand the premise in which it goes like there's a phenomenon called Forest that was started to swallowed up Shinjuku. And then there's five people who somehow was chosen to fight back the phenomenon (The five people themselves are fit Five Man Band trope to a degree) and the way to fight it was through the riddle or something like that. There's also some reference from the popular work such as Winnie the Pooh, Lord of the Ring, and the most obvious of all Alice in Wonderland seeing that we got a mysterious girl called Alice here. Another thing to note is that the sex scenes at this VN might be quite disturbing.
3. Deardrops (VNDB 7.51)
To answer the critic Deardrops's writer here is probably like to write in a dramatic way (Apparently he'll carry his dramatic writing into Bokuten), so we can't exactly fault him for using some of (Not clever) plot device. Even with that in mind I'm still mind of Rimu's route though in that to me it's being redundant, although maybe I'll change my mind if I manage to replay this. As for the premise, we have Shouichi (Our MC) who fall into depression after he injured his arm back at Germany, and seeing that he's a violinist it's very serious matter. One day after he's fascinated with the rock show like Shikanosuke from Kira Kira, he decided to form a band with some eccentric talents including the aforementioned Rimu and straightforward high school girl Riho (Who also the main heroine, and that her route is the central focus of this VN). From there, Shouichi started to find a new passion when he play together with his bandmate, and then pull himself from the depression. As for the VN here, Rimu aside this is another Overdrive VN which mean that this VN have more focus on the music like Kira Kira, although unlike Kira Kira this time Shouichi here is a young adult and that he work at the bar before form the band.
2. Hoshizora no Memoria -Wish upon a Shooting Star- (VNDB 7.79)
The first translation was released by Insem, in which it did contained some minor controversy. Namely that he decided to change Mare's sex scene CG into dolphin which is quite reasonable seeing that Mare is like a child and Australian law (Insem was live in Australia) is strictly banned lolicon, and yet quite questionable (Well it's easy to fix anyway). Fast forward to 2017, Sekai decided to rerelease this by using the new translation that was worked on by Akerou and apparently the translation for that was heavily criticized (Well it's another redundant release by Sekai anyway). Controversy aside, the VN premise was in regard of our MC You (Yeah that's his name) that was move to the town where his aunt live and that he's been at the town when he was a child. One day he decided to go to his childhood place and at the place he met a shinigami (Mare) who somehow resembled his missing childhood friend. From there You decided to investigate the shinigami while at the same time enjoying his school life at the Astronomy Club. Anther two thing to note is that the common route is been criticized as a long one, and that the staffs behind the VN (FAVORITE) was said to take a liking to mysterious loli as shown with Mare here.
1. Kamidori Alchemy Meister (VNDB 8.13)
At first I'd read Taka-jun review on this at 2011 (The review in question), and then I decided to forget abut it seeing that it's still untranslated back then. At least until 2012 when I saw this VN was shown at a certain site as being translated in the morning, and after did some research I find out that back then Aroduc released it quietly. Of course seeing that Aroduc was the one who translated this it mean Kamdori here is a gameplay VN, and a heavy one at that. The premise is that we have our MC Wilfred aka Wil who was abut to take a test to determined whether he'll pass as an alchemist or not, and he passed easily. From there Wil established his workshop, and decided to work very hard in order to make people around him smile. Of course he's not alone at this quest seeing that he need bodyguards, and he'd manage to got three girls as his bodyguards not long after he become the alchemist. Yeah we supposed to not put the focus on the story because Eushully here is more famous as gameplay VN maker, and so far only two Eushully VNs that were being properly translated. As for the gameplay, there's a lot to do but basically this is a strategy RPG with emphasis on selling the items (And you can get game over from losing all of the money).
While there's still some good new releases like above there's fewer fan translation compared to last three years though, although to be fair most of well known VNs back then were already translated and Lemnisca was focused on I/O (Ixrec was also focused in Rewrite). To add more problem on that the official is still no aggressive like nowadays seeing that Sekai was still working together with JAST for releasing School Days, so there's still no much release from Sekai (Duh). Still 2012 here is also important year as well in that it bring Kamidori as the first translated Eushully VN along with the completion of Infinity trilogy after we have both of Ever17 and Remember11 being translated, so yeah it's not a bad year here.
PS - As for the title I decided to add alchemist part from Kamidori into the literal translation of Hoshizora no Memoria (Memoria of a Starry Sky), so we have 'Memoria of an Alchemist' as the title although obviously we wouldn't read the diary of an alchemist here.
