Nandemonai

So from the ones listed here that look good to me, I see: Hatsuyuki Sakura Gekkou no Carnevale World Election Soukou Akki Muramasa Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo Yori mo Soushuu Senshinkan Gakuen Hachimyoujin Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de Aiyoku no Eustia Hello, World. And ones that I didn't see mentioned here that I'm interested in: Bullet Butlers Evolimit Sukimazakura to Uso no Machi Mashiro-iro symphony Triangle Hearts

That looks like this game: https://vndb.org/v18694 I'm pretty sure because the Japanese text in the bottom right matches the title of this game. And that looks to be one of the girls from it.

Yeah, no. Sorry, but I track MangaGamer's status updates. "Picked up" has always meant "no work has been done on this title yet" on any title that's ever been tagged with it. It is possible some scripting work has been done on Sona-Nyl, as I often see Doddler tweeting about doing scripting work on games before they hit 100/100. But the game is at 0% translated and edited, where it has been ever since MangaGamer announced it. MangaGamer isn't Jast USA, they provide regular status updates on all their projects, and it's unthinkable that the translator for the project would be (say) 50% done and they don't know. See in the thread I posted a few days back about their job posting? Yeah, they have weekly (or so) status meetings with their translators. So if there had been any translation progress at all, it would have been apparent to MangaGamer and in turn it would have ended up in their status tracker. I got no idea what's up with Sona-Nyl, but I really don't see them picking up more Steampunk titles while it's completely stalled. Unless they announce the reason Sona-Nyl's been held up is that all of them are coming, which I highly doubt.

I was about to say more Alicesoft was a shoe-in, but they did just announce another Alicesoft game. I'd also suggest more Liarsoft, but they announced Sona-Nyl a year ago and have literally done no work on it. Given that 4 of these are from existing partners, and that I don't think they're likely to announce more from companies that just had one ... That leaves Propeller, Liar-Soft stuff other than Steampunk (maybe that yuri title?), St. Michael Girls' School, Innocent Grey, and Clockup. Or perhaps Black Lilith. (But you never know, they could announce more Alicesoft.) Their other partners haven't worked with them in years; I doubt (for instance) Score will give them anthing else, and we know what happened to Navel.

I actually liked Yuka's bad ending almost more than her real ending. It's much crueller to the characters, so I still prefer the good one. But it's the best-written bad ending I think I've ever seen.

Edit: Hmm, maybe I'll not post that link here. Nothing to see here ...

So in my inbox was an email about the whole W Happiness price discrepancy thing (apparently the game was more expensive on Mangagamer.com itself, which is contrary to their new policy, so they gave free Steam keys to those affected). Lo and behold, the email contains the following line: Copyright © 2017 Japan Animation Contents, Inc., All rights reserved. Can't find the reference now, but MangaGamer has said they don't use that name in Japan. This sounds like the name they do use. Lo and behold, when I google that name, I find this: https://jobs.gaijinpot.com/job/details/107365/en/translation-interpretation/anime-game-translator/ There are some interesting tidbits in this employment solicitation. They offer (or at least, they did in 2015) between 1 and 1.5 cents per (I presume Japanese?) character, and they want to see 40K characters per week. These seem to be the requirements at least for that one opening:

"8.5 The User acknowledges that the Software, over the course of operation, may generate anonymous usage statistics and transmit them over the internet for research purposes. The information is not traceable to any individual or organization and is used in order to get reliable information on which features of the Software are used (or not used). No personally identifiable information is collected, and no anonymous usage statistics will be shared with any third party. " Apparently MangaGamer thinks it's okay for 18+ games to spy on people playing them now? What the hell is this doing in their EULA? Edit: So apparently I got a free Steam key for W Happiness. Interestingly, the Steam version doesn't pop up any EULA at all. I'm more inclined to chalk this up to some kind of poor editing choice when they were cribbing from the EULA template they were using (which apparently required that they leave the name of the creators of it in the EULA itself).

You do know that we can hear you, right?

Progress update time! Editing is now at 13.7%

Hey, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo might buffalo Buffalo buffalo, but do they play Sakura Sakura?

I did compare him to the Timecube guy.

Damn. Those excerpts read like the Timecube guy decided to get into fan translating Visual Novels. And he translated a game that already had an English translation - the whole game - so he could write this? He's either completely serious, or a truly epic troll the likes of which we haven't seen since the Voynich Manuscript.

Actually, I've seen people say that Key works tend to reuse similar ideas (enough so that someone said they could tell what was going to happen to so-and-so just based on how it went in previous Key games they'd played). In which case I might recommend starting with the one that seems most interesting to you.

See, that's just it. Pulltop already released an uncensored game. In 2008, Jast USA released Princess Waltz. I happened to like Princess Waltz, so I'm naturally interested in other Pulltop titles. This is the primary reason I was so upset with MoeNovel for butchering IMHHW. I wanted that game really badly not just because of all the awards it's supposed to have won, but because I actually knew Pulltop by reputation; I was really not happy that I felt compelled to boycott it. I gather Will isn't all that enchanted with Jast USA anymore, considering their brands have been branching out to MangaGamer and Sekai. Will is allowing other brands to release uncensored things; I think Peter was right on the money when he said they wanted to try something different with MoeNovel. Honestly, I don't care if MoeNovel exists and only releases censored stuff. But I do care that Pulltop games don't get full releases, and I also care about translation quality. Sekai/Denpa and MangaGamer have shown they know how to take care of that.

Based on the revelation that their second title was also censored? No, and it doesn't even matter what it is. I mean, I suppose they could release the not-yet-out 18+ version of that Lovekami title in English, and if they did, I'd probably change my mind about writing them off. But I doubt very much that they will. I more or less am back to wanting them to quit releasing stuff, so Pulltop games can go to MangaGamer or Sekai.

You do realize 2 of those days were a weekend, right? Don't expect them to get back to you on a weekend. Also, last week there was a huge con that they were at. So a) a bunch of email piled up, and b) they're all tired from the con. It's just too early to think that they're ignoring you. Also, exactly what email address did you use? It might be better to contact them at their press inquiry email address, especially compared to the support email address.

She's the main reason I'm actually interested in Dal Segno. I did recently beat Sonohana New Gen, but I still have six other games I'm working on, so I'm not quite ready to queue up a new one. I'm still working on Princess Evangile (at least the common route so I can play W Happiness), Chaos;Head, Tokyo Babel, Shadows of Pygmalion, Majikoi (I want to at least finish the common route before deciding whether I want to wait to see if Jast's translation is better), and Gahkthun.

I resent that! I'll have you know that I'm reading these games for the articles!

The already-signed contract will almost certainly still go through. If SukiSuki was going to have to be cancelled because of this, MangaGamer would have done it already. It probably would have been announced at AX. A small handful of games were in fact released from now-defunct companies (MangaGamer had Hinata Bokko / Which One Will I Choose, and Jast had Transfer Student (the last real Jast game ever translated) and Litlewitch Romanesque - and that's just the ones I know about). Future releases ... well, if MangaGamer had inked any deals before they imploded, and got the data, they could theoretically keep right on truckin'. Aside from that, whoever buys up the IP might still be amenable. I know in US bankruptcy court, going bankrupt doesn't necessarily mean dissolving the company. But I dunno how it works in Japan.

We don't know why Maitetsu was licensed. Sekai Project has never said.

MangaGamer got the rights to the English language version of Eve Burst Error (not Terror, by the way). They publicly intimated that they technically had more rights, but couldn't get working copies of anything but EBE. When I talked (in IRC) to an MG staffer about how I still had disc copies of (say) Divi Dead, the response was basically that it wasn't so much they 'didn't have copies', but that EBE was 'the only one that worked on modern Windows'. And since such old titles wouldn't be worth having, say, Doddler port them to a newer engine (because it couldn't possibly be cost effective), that meant they weren't worth looking into any further. More details to be found here: http://blog.mangagamer.org/2012/04/26/eve-burst-error/ If you are thinking about resurrecting these old classics somehow, and you have the coding chops to do so, then I would start by contacting MangaGamer.

#HowDidYouGiveAllTheBoringCharactersRoutesAnyway Like, seriously, wasn't anyone paying attention to how the script was turning out? How did a whole group of people decide that the original four characters were the most interesting?

And there are enough other games also at 100/100 that MangaGamer could easily run through the end of the year without releasing any of their AX announcements. There's more Higurashi ready. In beta testing, there's Golden Fantasia, If You Love Me Then Say So, and Kuroinu (pt 2). In scripting are Bokuten, Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome, and Marina's Cuckolding Report. Hadaka Shituji is also at 100/100. Near 100/100, but not quite there, is Imopara 2. That's nine titles nearly done (Damekoi makes ten), but only five slots till the end of the year (July's is already known). That'll last through till spring 2018 if they don't double up. Even if they do, that's a lot of stuff, and MangaGamer doesn't double up too often. Now, nothing says MG has to release games in the order they announced them. In fact, the first Funbag Fantasy was released very shortly after it was announced. But there are a LOT of games in MangaGamer's queue, and so it really depends what their priorities are.

The scenes aren't considered individually, they're considered in relation to the work as a whole. The game itself might, it might not. I'm no lawyer, I just read up on this stuff because it interests me. My point never was that these games are / aren't obscene. The law is incredibly vague on this point anyway, it basically is applied on a case-by-case basis. My point was that if it does go to court, the disclaimers won't really mean a whole lot.