ChaosRaven

Having to start over and over again in a title with gameplay sections sounds super annoying. Bit of a shame, the series actually looked quite promising.

I won't deny that it's certainly more on the comedy rape side. I don't complain that it's in the top ten, but having it on first place is a bit much. And I certainly prefer a Rance on first place a million times over having something as violent as Maggot Baits in the top ten.

Yeah, I know the gameplay of the Rance titles is supposed to be one of the best, but it's still full of rape... The fantasy statement.

It's more than 10 years old so you could be right...

Unfortunately (for me) it'll be most likley a Rance title.

I make my Japanese educational books ready and prepare for some slight headaches since it'll most likely will be an untranslated title. Titles I'm hyped for usually don't get translated.

The top ten don't look so bad overall, but having a rape nukige series on first place and a yuri nukige series on third place is a bit sad. But I wonder if this sentence has a deeper meaning. Maybe a hint for Sorcery Jokers from 3rdEye?!

Yes, Kara no Shoujo and also G-Senjou no Maou made good use of NVL for certain scenes. I definitely prefer ADV for the majority of text, but using NVL to emphasize a temporary POV switch works rather well.

Hmm, to be honest I've my doubts that the writer of Princess Evangile is capable of writing a decent horror mystery VN. It takes a bit more than just adding gore for that. I'll await the overall reception first before I start to get hyped.

So Ayoku no Eustia is getting another chance against White Album 2 now? That should be interesting since both lost with 42% to 58% against Mahoyo. Well I'm rooting for Eustia of course. Still, in the end it will probably come down to that either Dies Irae or Baldr Sky is allowed to loose against... Fate/Extra CCC?! I wonder if the Type-Moon fans that joined later on are really aware that this is just a fun contest and they will neither get Mahoyo nor Fate/Extra CCC even if they'll win.

Who knows? We're talking about Jast, the company that intentionally licensed the most extreme fetish eroge they could find on the market, just to censor all the hardcore content out of it...

*I'm almost scared to interrupt those two* Anyway, try Koihime Musou - it's full of battle maidens and it's great! Some other VN's with nice elder sister type routes: Otome from Da Capo 2, Kyou from Clannad, Sayaka from Dengeki Stryker, Amane from Grisaia. VN's with older girls are rare: Mei from Edelweiss, Ai from Tick Tack, Saya from Canvas 2. There are certainly more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

I think I still like Kanon's route in G-Senjou more than the true route. The true route got a bit too over the top towards the end and logic holes more and more frequent. Kanon's route was more... subtile somehow, but I do like ice skating so I'm a bit biased (long time Aljona Savchenko fan). I also had the impression that Kanon was the only heroine Kyousuke really liked as a girlfriend. Haru and Kyousuke always felt more like siblings for some reason lol. Kanon was also a pretty admirable character with a strong personality even if it wasn't as obvious as with Haru. She did blend out all the yakuza stuff around her so she could focus 100% on ice skating. Something that her rival wasn't fully able to achieve and Kanon made that clear to her with some pretty merciless statements both on and off the ice. The only route in G-Senjou that was real crap was the one of Mizuha.

Besides the two Japanese VN's I'm currently reading I also gave Saya no Uta a try and finished it now. I had the intention to read it for quite a long time, but the creepy look somehow always kept me from picking it up. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how well written it was. It was almost brilliant how it showed you the 'other side' to make you understand how Fuminori experiences the world and why he acts in a certain way that might appear horrible from the perspective of a normal person. It was really hard to judge right and wrong here. I could actually sympathize with all characters to a certain degree by understanding their motivations and overall I saw them all more as victims of the situation than perpetrators. There's also a saying that the the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. And that's the way Fuminori was seeing Saya. In that regard Saya no Uta reminded me of Eden* which had a comparable relationship with Sion and Ryou. In a way Saya no Uta was bit like the demonic equivalent of the angelic Eden*, but both were emotionally very powerful novels. I was close to tears at times which I didn't really expect from this VN. It was certainly more tragic than simply horror even if it had some really creepy and messed up scenes. I was also impressed that the writer stayed true to Lovecraft's original vision of the Old Ones in the sense that they are more or less amoral, and they are just perceived as evil beings because they are so fundamentally different that's it's almost impossible to understand them for a human mind. It would have been nice if Demonbane would have gone a similar way instead of fielding just a bunch of run of the mill comic book villains. Saya also had a surprisingly high art quality for a VN of its age. The 'organic' images in particular were very well drawn even if the character designs showed their age a bit. The blurred photographic background images were a real downer though - I really hate that ultra cheap look. I wish they would have just skipped the annoying H-scenes and drawn the backgrounds instead. Anyway, it was a pretty good read and certainly worth my time, but it's not something I can stomach everyday. So what English VN to pick up next...?

While MangaGamer originally had download limits too, they also said that if someone would really need more downloads, then he could just contact them for more. But it still left a bad after taste somehow so I'm glad they got rid of it.

Pretty literaly. Let's see...

In general I think Key's animes stand out much more than their visual novels and I would definitely suggest to watch at least Kanon, Clannad and Angel Beats. Clannad is Key's most popular VN and certainly worth a read even if the routes vary greatly in quality. It's the only Key VN I liked except Kanon, but the Kanon anime is vastly superior to the VN. Little Busters had a wimp protagonist and all the good heroines had either a bad routes or were just side characters. The VN would have been vastly superior if Kyousuke would have been the protagonist. Rewrite had the most interesting scenario by far, but several characters going nazi in their routes ruined it for me. Most people don't seem to care about that though. Overall, I think your best bet would be either reading Clannad or Rewrite depending on your mood.

I love manga art with strong and vibrant colors, and I could die for female character designs with knighly maiden and princess themes with long hair, pretty clothes and shapely body. And while I have several artists I like, the most eye-catching character designs in this direction I've seen in a while are the ones from Clip☆Craft's Unionism Quartet and its poster girl Yurina in particular.

Overall, I would rank protagonists into four categories ordered by how much I like or dislike each type of them in general: 1.) Protagonists with a strong personality I can sympathize with The best ones. They make it easy to identify with them and they do some cool stuff. Examples: Kaito from Akagoei, Mizuno from Walkure Romanze, Reiji from Kara no Shoujo, Kenichi from Sharin no Kuni. Good anime examples are also Yuuichi from Kanon or Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya. 2.) Mostly neutral protagonists without a particular strong personality The okayish ones - those are the majority of the VN protagonists. They might not have an outstanding personality but it's still not too hard to identify with them because they at least don't do completely retarded things. Examples of some of the better ones: Shirou from F/SN, Kazuto from Koihime Musou, Akito from Unionism Quartet, Rin from Shuffle. A particular bad example would be Makoto from School Days. 3.) Protagonists with a particular annoying personality The annoying ones. They have a personality, but you wish they wouldn't because they are just going on you nerves the whole time. This is also still a bit of a love or hate category. Some might still like them because of their unique personality, but if you don't then they can ruin the whole VN for you. Examples: Takumi from Chaos;Head, Rance, Okabe from Stein's Gate 4.) Scum protagonists The unbearable ones. Your run of the mill sadistic rape hentai protagonist with neither brain nor morals. Examples: Fortunately, I try to avoid titles with good examples for this category. Each category still has better and worse protagonists in it, but this would be the rough order I would give. For obvious reasons there's also a lot of personal taste involved and the categories are not clear cuts but grey areas.

I've now finished my first round of cross reading Akagoei and Lovely x Cation, which means I've finished one route of each. I had bad luck with Akagoei since I went for Moe Kanzaki's route first and it turned out just as a mere side route that wasn't all that great. While it starts interesting with a conflict in the slum district, it then turns into a strange food stand building and dojo cleaning bore fest. Even worse, when Kaito and More finally get together the route just... ends, with almost no together time . Judging by some comments, this was supposed to be the weakest route (fortunately), so I'm optimistic that the others will be better (hopefully). After I finished my first Akagoei route I started with Lovely x Cation. I actually didn't play a real dating sim before, so this one was kind of interesting. In contrast to most normal VN's, this one doesn't just have story choices that influence the outcome, but you also have to increase specific stats and skill like in an RPG by buying items, do training, visiting certain places etc. Each heroine has certain preferences you have to fullfill to get her and certain items or particular high stats in a certain area can unlock 'special content' . The VN also reduces the overall story content to the bare essentials and focuses straight on the character interaction between the protagonist and the chosen heroine in a similar way like the Sono Hanabira titles. This actually works better than it sounds. Story is great if you're reading great stuff like in G-Senjou or Kara no Shoujo, but if it turns out to be just boring filler content like the dojo cleaning session for an old fart in Akagoei, you're better off without it. In a pure moege the romance interaction is the real meat anyway and you get a lot of that in Lovely x Cation (in a very literal sense ). I went for Sera first and it was very entertaining, I can't complain. She's certainly one of the hottests chicks I've seen in a while. It's a very pretty game and they compensate the lack of story content with lots of extra content for the heroines. Sera alone has six after stories (I'm playing the Mou Zutto Hatsukoi no Hibi Edition with extra content). Anyway, the first round of the route duel goes to Lovely x Cation which I didn't really expect. I'm now starting the next round with Tae route in Akagoei and Miasa route in Lovely x Cation.

Well, Jast at least succeeded in one point with their demo: It's certainly getting a lot of attention from all sides now. I guess they are using Moenovel as their role model - even bad press is press. lol

Akane 'Bio Hitler' and Lucia 'Poison Ivy' turning into ruthless massacre queens and Kotarou treating their actions more like a simple shop lifting incident than serious crimes killed the whole VN for me. I liked them both in the common route but hated them with a passion at the end of their routes. I've no sympathy for mass murderers.

Fixed! IMHO the comedy got old pretty fast and was far too reliant on presenting the heroines as retarded with Sachi permanently undressing, Yumikos ridiculous knife attacks, Michiru's idiocy etc.

Someone calling the TypeMoon anime fan base for help to fend off Eustia and almost doubling the usual vote count in the process was quite unexpected. If they continue their support, they could drive Mahoyo to the win. What a crazy turn of tides...

Claymore was one of the most violent animes I've seen and Attack on Titan and Basilisk also had some rather harsh scenes.