Darklord Rooke

Unfortunately, most people doing professional translations in the VN community are better qualified to translate than those in the fan-translation community. This is especially true at this moment in time where localisers have recently snapped up most of the fan-TL talent. Which is an example of passion not equating to quality. Most of the terrible translations on Steam are by Japanese development studios who seek to 'do it themselves'. Like IMHHW, for example. Chusingura looks pretty bad, also. But the best translations are officially localised. Grisaia, Tokyo Babel, and others.

Heh, do you know why Trump gets quoted more often than any other politician? It's because he's not a politician. Why does that matter? Because politicians are trained to evade, and to use weasel words to create false impressions in the audience. Lying is seen to be less sophisticated and used as a last resort. So basically Clinton will wriggle her way out of things by evading the question and giving misleading speeches. Remember how she backed an increase in minimum wage ... but would ultimately let the states decide? That was her way of saying 'Fat chance, cause it ain't gonna happen'. She was forced into this to counter Sanders, who actively sought higher minimum wage. She's stating a lie that cannot come back to haunt her, as in - you can't PROVE anything. Politicians are devious, Trump is straight forward. That's the only difference. So my position is that if anybody hates Trump, be glad that you're actually seeing what you're getting because most of the time in the political system you don't.

It would be pretty stupid of them, considering false advertising laws prohibit presenting misleading claims to deceive (although laws vary from country to country.)

It would depend on the developer. I can see it not being enough to make a deal with big name companies, but to be honest I think big name companies are looking more and more to bring titles over independently. For smaller companies the localisation fees will be smaller which will make 100k more viable. If people expected 300k - 1million was going to be the norm for kickstarters based on how a few VNs did (which were beloved to the community with much hype surrounding them) then I would say those expectations were unrealistic.

That is true. But Grisaia didn't get much compared to Muv Luv, which topped a million. And Grisaia was funded in 2014, and Muv Luv in late 2015, which shows that if the planets align and Venus is in the right quadrant that I will get a Ferrari in the future Grisaia was a VN beloved by the community and translated by a person regarded as the top VN translator at the time. And are you really comparing the performance of Clannad, by Key with a successful anime and all, with little known Chrono Clock? xD

Libra of the Vampire Princess was shoved down everybody's throats until they got their 180k. Most SP's other successful kickstarters were already famous with fan-translations available. But that's beside the point. The point is that a certain segment of the community though Kickstarter was borderline dead, then here comes SP with a title few people know of and almost zero advertising easily topping 80k and will probably end up over 100k. That's significant, it shows that Kickstarter is still a very viable route for people to go down.

Seems kickstarter fatigue wasn't as big a thing as people thought. People still seem willing to invest if the right project comes along.

But I understand the urge to go around claiming the things you enjoy are the "best ever". Everybody does it. Japanese translators have the advantage that they can easily claim that Western audiences aren't getting the "full experience" because they can't read it in the original language. But even if I could read these VNs in the original Japanese language, I bet I'd still be disappointed with what people call a "kamige". Mainly because people are individuals and look for different things in their fiction, and my taste doesn't seem to match most of the VN fanbase's. Ever 17, for example. Claimed as a masterpiece by much of the Western fanbase but I consider it to be a horribly paced, POS. And vice versa - I'm sure stuff I really enjoy would bore the pants of others. So yeah, every time I see the word "kamige" I think "here we go"

I have yet to come across a translated visual novel I'd regard as a 'kamige', even with the budgets Japanese studios have behind them. The games don't translate well because Western and Japanese value different things in their stories, and there's always problems with storytelling or whatnot. Even disregarding F/SN obviously questionable translation, you have storytelling issues like massive bloat which detracts from the plot and causes pacing issues. The most talked about cases being the horribly inserted sex scenes. In fact I wish people would drop the term, it just creates unrealistic expectations in the community that can never be met.

It's not that English developers upped their game, it's that English developers stopped developing primarily for the PC. Take Bethesda as an example, the best selling RPG on consoles but they used to develop solely for the PC. Interestingly enough, what really evened the playing field was the changing of console hardware. Console hardware these days are almost glorified PCs, and Western developers, having a very PC oriented background, are very advantaged by this. Their entire production cycle was optimised for PC hardware. Japanese developers ... not so much. That and the increasing expense for developing on consoles means most JRPGs will probably head to handheld.

Goooood, cause that's what I was gonna do anyway If I were to be really honest, 'Mr. Poltroon' sounds like half of a 2 man comedy act. Where's your lionhearted colleague? :S Also, how come Tiag gets his name changed to reflect his cowardly nature and I don't get mine changed to reflect my Dark Lord nature? I only petition Tay every month ...

Will have to prioritise reading this game :3

[Dons cynical hat]Random aspiring doujin author plucked from school and paid peanuts ... probably. Japanese developers will pay more than whatever Winged Cloud can afford to dish out, and provide more stable and consistent employment. Therefore, whoever's been plucked from the populace is someone who isn't good enough to work for them. I wouldn't expect some great new level of writing, here.[/Removes cynical hat]

Staying the hell away from Winged Cloud, I suspect. Some writers who worked with them have had some pretty poor experiences.

0.0 I didn't know this. Don't know how I missed it

So does Columbo, which is one of the greatest detective series ever created. Shows like Columbo use the 'inverted mystery form', where the viewer/reader knows the murderer and method of murder and the interest is in the catching of the criminal. Often impossible crimes (sometimes locked room mysteries) are employed, so even though the reader knows who the murderer is, it seems impossible for that person to have committed that crime. In short it's often an intellectual exercise and a battle of wits scenario. These types of mysteries need to be exceptionally carefully crafted and Columbo stands above every other show in that regard. This type of format by itself isn't a 'negative', it all depends on how it's done.

What's the point of even having the Denpasoft store page? :S

Iron Fist is a comic created by a white dude who thought 'I've just seen my first Kung Fu movie, so cool!' Yeah, I can feel the culture emanating from the pages, mate. How about we cast every character who can't jump as a white dude, due to white culture reasons? Quite a lot of roles that are handed to white men can be remade with a female lead. Very little about roles actually demand a certain gender. And yet feminists don't get up in arms about every individual movie that gets released with a white male lead. They go on about a lack of roles in general, but they don't go 'that one could be a woman. That one could be a woman. That one could be a woman. Don't support any of these movies.' It's one thing to call for support of a movie made with female leads, and quite another to start calling out every movie that could have had a female lead. Or an Asian lead. Pretty much the backlash to the hate of Ghostbusters 2016 was the backlash against the men who started jumping up and down because they were women. And I'm perfectly fine with the suggestion that if you hate Ghostbusters solely because they were women, you're bordering on sexism.

It's only hypocritical if the "SJWs" in question believe something about one part of racial diversity and something completely different about another part. That they DON'T is what makes them not hypocritical. Here is where your logic takes a step to the wonky side. Whether Sony (or Hollywood) decides not to promote an Asian led film has little to do with whether "SJWs" promoted an Asian led film. The decision is not in their hands, and while Sony took a risk banking on there being a large number of females in America willing to watch it, they may have decided there aren't enough people in America to want to watch an Asian-lead movie to justify making a big-budget whatever. This has little to do with selfishness, or hypocrisy, and everything to do with the realities of that demographic on the ground, how many there are, and how much power they wield when talking with the big execs. Now I don't know who you're talking about. Sony? Hollywood? Self-righteous? Lol. Diversity is promoted by people who are not your average white male person trying to get more representation into Hollywood. Capitalism is the rule of law which tends to Govern big businesses and big publishers. Big Business has never pushed for diversity, they've always followed capitalism.

Not really. These aren't new issues, people have been talking about it for well over a decade. It's only become a 'thing' in recent times because black and female actors are getting sick of being ignored and are forcing the issue. The reason why Asian actors don't get as much air time is because, well, there's not as many of them to force the thing into public awareness? I don't see it as hypocritical, everybody is fighting for their rights but Asian actors are much more of a minority. I don't see it as hypocritical because "SJWs" aren't saying one thing about one aspect, and another about others. America doesn't want to promote diversity, they're being dragged into it kicking and screaming because the corporations think it'll cost them money. As in, directors have come out and said "I've cast a white man because if I didn't, I probably wouldn't have got funded and I probably wouldn't have recouped enough in box office takings to make a profit."

You're trying to shoehorn in a completely unrelated point and apply it to the GITS movie. While whitewashing is a 'thing', I don't agree it's a 'thing' in this instance. Although I would like to hear you expand on the hypocrisy of American 'SJWs' point. Considering that most feminists are for more inclusion overall in Hollywood, and were quite outspoken during the recent Oscars shambles.

@Tay: Could you put the 'Go to top' button at the top of the page please? Right at the top. Somewhere above the Fuwanovel banner seems like an awesome place This request is totally not a sulkish response to accidentally clicking it instead of the 'quote' button ... over and over again xD

They also get 12,000 a month on Patreon.

Since when did industries cast actors based on where the story was originally developed? Did China cast white actors when they remade 'What Women Want' a few years ago? Hell no they didn't. As the son of a Chinese/Malaysian mother, I will say that avoiding the movie because the American remake cast typically American actors is stupid. American actors were cast to make it more accessible to the audience they were targeting, just as Chinese actors are cast in Chinese remakes to make it more accessible to their audiences.

Anyone else picture Winged Cloud any time they see 'Sakura' in a title? No? Just me? ... I see EDIT: Ah, Palas as well. I'm in good company