Fred the Barber

Well, intention matters here - unintentionally mispronouncing a name or word due to ignorance, accent, inability to produce certain phonemes, religious preference, etc., is obviously not grounds for being called an asshole. On the other hand, if you repeatedly, intentionally mispronounce my name, despite my correcting you otherwise, I'm probably going to think you're an asshole. Soft g. Because I'm not an asshole.

an alien spacecraft. I like to sing ...

I don't think the problem had anything to do with organization. We just happened to vote in something that some people happened not to like. It's no big deal, and it'll probably happen again, and it won't be a big deal then either. When it comes time for next month, maybe we'll make a wiser decision.

False. Unlike this moron, senator from my former home state. Next person prefers writing with a pen over writing with a pencil.

Suikoden 2 is coming along well on the Vita. It feels a bit weird, though, because even though I'm some 8 hours into the game, I still don't have a fort full of quirky people that I'm recruiting; I'm just kind of wandering around, running away from the big army led by the madman. Hopefully it all comes together soon - the strategic battles up to this point have been a little meh because of the lack of huge numbers of characters.

Watched the first three episodes of From The New World. It's very pretty, and it's doing a fantastic job of making me feel uneasy. I wanted to relish the calm atmosphere it has going now, because I can see that all the nice everyday stuff is going up in flames very soon, but the show keeps jabbing me with reminders that all is decidedly not well. I don't recall any show every leaving me feel quite this nervous before - it's both pleasant and unpleasant, but mostly I'm savoring the feeling.

The most confusing part of this thread is where everybody assumes that Sekai Project is making money hand-over-fist. There is no basis for that, and I can only assume that the people making that assumption have no concept of at least one of these things, and probably all of them: - what a large variety of tasks requiring a variety of different skilled laborers (translators, software developers, etc.,) go into localizing a VN - how expensive it is to employ said skilled labor - how many hours of said skilled labor go into creating the final product This is, by the way, also the reason that fan translation projects are slow, unreliable, and rare. The point is, I doubt any of MangaGamer, JAST, or Sekai Project is making substantial amounts of money in terms of net profit. Frankly, I imagine they feel good about themselves if they're able to pay their employees reliably, especially in the case of Sekai Project, being the new kid on the block. On the topic of "morality" of Kickstarter: the only way I can see there being some moral issue here is if you believe Sekai Project is taking advantage of people by misleading them about what exactly a Kickstarter pledge will entail. Kickstarter itself makes its guarantees abundantly clear. Anybody who claims to not understand what they're getting when they make a Kickstarter pledge is either lying or stupid. As someone who threw a few hundred dollars at the Sekai Project Clannad Kickstarter, I can assure you I was not misled, nor am I an idiot. I simply have disposable income and a desire to support the artists who make things I'm passionate about. Consider this counter-intuitive, but true, statement: Kickstarter is a great platform for people like me because it allows me to pay more money for products I'm passionate about, versus simply buying that product at retail. If you go back a hundred years, the prices different people paid for a similar product from the same seller were radically different; haggling doesn't really exist anymore, and mass-production has made it possible to have some guarantee on "sameness" that didn't really exist before, which also contributes. This has served to squeeze out a lot of the long tail of potential creations - things that a small number of people would pay a lot for. High art has always gotten by, but very recently there's been backlash against this more broadly, and now "artisanal" products are becoming common. Kickstarter, specifically the part of it that enables you to pay different amounts of money based on how much you value a product, is a part of this same trend. There's nothing wrong with it - it's just a bit weird to us, because we're so used to everybody paying the same price for identical goods. But no economist will tell you that's how things should or must be - different people value the same good differently.

I picked up Eden* and played for a few minutes. I probably won't have time to really dive into it for a few days yet, but I like the feel of it so far.

Fortunately, it seems like higher-quality VNs are getting licensed more now than they used to be (until a year or two ago, it seems like it was pretty much just nukige as far as the eye could see, with very rare exceptions like Steins;Gate that mostly serve to prove the rule). But the only way that's going to keep going is if it is commercially viable. To wrap it up neatly, if we want to actually increase the availability of VNs in the US, the best thing is probably to just get as many people as possible to go buy Grisaia. If Grisaia sells, it should be taken as a sign that there actually is a market out there that can support localization to English for top-notch VNs, and then the companies responsible for those translations will be in a better position to cut deals with the larger VN development houses to license them. If it doesn't sell, then the market probably isn't there, and we'll all end up staring at this image, with nobody to blame but ourselves:

Aeka route spoilers:

strange loop. If I were going to make my own Visual Novel, it would definitely have...

Could... could this be... the legendary Nyatsume Rinyan? Sorry, I have nothing to offer except my solidarity, and a nyaa~

10/10. It is glorious. I may or may not have been secretly waiting for the opportunity to rate that avatar here.

True, I never really got the point of fine sandpaper. Next person is secretly a cat impersonating a Fuwan.

Persona is really not an E3 game - maybe, maybe if it was only now first being announced. But even then probably not. Final Fantasy 7 remake... people have only been asking for that for a decade or two. Square has been failing so hard lately with the Final Fantasy series, I hope they at least make a playable game here. Well, as long as they don't screw with the Materia and combat systems, they'll probably be ok... but they'll probably screw both of those up. When I buy Square and Nintendo, I'm putting you in charge of strategy.

You can get Kanon and Air easily on J-List, shrinkwrapped and new. They're not exactly cheap, given how old they are, and newer releases will cost you a lot more, but if it's Key, you can pretty much bet that you can import it from J-List. Unfortunately, their import selection beyond Key is super limited... So, I completely agree that there are a lot of VNs I would like to buy but have been completely unable to. I was proud of myself for getting a (new, shrinkwrapped) G-Senjou no Maou off of Mandarake recently, but that's about as adventurous as I've been in finding Japanese sources for importing VNs. I'm doing my best to try to support the medium (I have either an imported or legally-licensed downloaded copy of every VN I've ever played except Comyu), but it's really not easy in the US. Piracy, on the other hand, is unfortunately trivial...

Amane is best girl, but I like that particular, harmless flavor of weird. I found Kotori to get less annoying as the VN progresses, since I found her mostly being annoying when she's acting all tsun-tsun, but I don't want to put words in your mouth - maybe you just don't like disabled people.

3:25. Amazing.

Finished the final route for me, Aeka. Final rating for how much I enjoyed each route is probably: Nekoko > Mizuki > Aeka Amusingly, it's the opposite of the way I'd rank best girl: Aeka > Mizuki > Nekoko Other elements: - The music is not great, but not a total loss. Mercifully, the BGM track I found most listenable was the one that played the most often, "Today Again So Pure a Blue"; I never really got tired of it, despite it playing all the time. The OP is pretty decent as well (though the presence of H content in the OP video was a not-especially-enjoyable surprise). - The art style is interesting, and I'm a bit torn on how to feel about it. It reminds me a lot of Katawa Shoujo's character art style. I find many of the facial expressions and poses a bit off, especially all the ones where people are looking directly forward (maybe only Aeka and Nekoko had that pose), and the previously-mentioned Mizuki wry smile. But when the style looks good, it does look pretty good - Mizuki's normal smile is quite nice; it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I also really liked Aeka's facial expressions in the first shopping CGs (during the common route). Plot and characters were both really weak. There wasn't a lot of plot (basically one very straightforward conflict per route). The main characters were basically completely one-dimensional. And the way any given event played out was consistently way over-the-top, probably in an effort to make up for the weaknesses elsewhere, which instead just made the whole experience even less palatable. So, overall, I didn't really enjoy this VN very much. It had a couple of good moments where it hit me in the feels, but the vast majority of the time was spent rolling my eyes at yet another H scene, while wondering when we were finally going to make some real progress against the conflict.

7/10. Cute, and I like the eye color and the hat, but it's a little on the small side. Sorry, sorry, just teasing.

Blacking out is terrifying. I've gotten drunk enough to reach that point twice now (my first time, somewhat intentionally... the second time, because I was playing a drinking game with something way stronger than I expected). The last time was many, many years ago, and I restrain myself well before that point to make sure it never happens again. I still drink enough to get a mild hangover maybe a couple times a year, and I drink very small amounts very regularly. For people who are afraid of alcohol: assuming you're of age (because breaking the law to try alcohol is kind of dumb, all things considered; it's just not all that exciting) I still recommend you try it, in moderation, in the company of friends you trust. It really can be helpful in loosening up and helping you have more fun. There are both good and bad experiences to be had with alcohol, but it's honestly fairly predictable: in moderation, you almost always end up on the "good" side; too much, and you almost always end up on the "bad" side, one way or another (doing something regrettable, or even if you avoid that, a nasty hangover).

If you want to stay up to date with the videos, then just subscribe to the YouTube channel or something. The video was posted on Twitter as well as their forum ages ago Well, that's embarrassing. I did look around, but for whatever reason I wandered around their social media presence blindly and found nothing, rather than just searching for it. Anyway, thanks! On the topic of the video: - it's good to hear an expected rough release date for WEE Episode 02 (August). Here's to hoping they make it! - I hadn't heard about "No One But You" before, but it sure does look pretty: http://www.unwontedstudios.com/no-one-but-you/

Finished Stella Women's Academy. The 12th episode (the "real" last episode) didn't really live up to my expectations, unfortunately. All told, it was still better than I expected, but after how well-done the drama in the middle was, I kind of expected more from the engine. Oh well. Episode 13 was pure, shameless fanservice. What can you do. Next up, probably something more serious. EIther Shin Sekai Yori or Attack on Titan is most likely.

So, 1.5 months after Monthly Wrap-up 1, I find myself wondering where Monthly Wrap-up 2 is. Sekai Project's twitter is active, they've been putting up new Kickstarters, and most importantly they even published some games (or at least one, I remember) since the last wrap-up. I was hoping I wouldn't have to use their twitter to keep track of what they're doing, though (and delightfully their website is buggy, so I can't even sign up for their mailing list).

brush my teeth. Every morning when I get up, I...