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Clephas

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Everything posted by Clephas

  1. I think I said this before, but VNs as a medium hold a lot of potential for grabbing the comics and novel-reading crowd. The fact that the current niche is dominated entirely by Japanese-made games just means you need to completely ignore the Japanese side of the equation. The Japanese defined the current niche, and they have polished it until it shines... so what you need to do is use a pickaxe to carve out your own niche, ignoring the conventions that a third-rate Japanese company will do better than you anyway. Imitation is frequently called the highest form of flattery, but if you are serious about making inroads in the industry with VNs you made yourself, you really do need to not even try to write something you'd see out of a Japanese company.
  2. Clephas

    Books!

    I recently marathon-read the Honor Harrington novels by Weber... and as usual, I was impressed with the quality of that author's work. I've yet to read anything by him that I didn't enjoy.
  3. lol... none. Older protags are rare in VNs in the first place (except certain types of rapegame and nukige), and translated ones are even rarer.
  4. Vermilion Bind of Blood (protagonist was in his late twenties when he became a vampire, lol) Reminiscence Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no (mid-twenties) Eden* (early thirties) Gensou no Avatar (mid-twenties) Soukou Akki Muramasa (mid-thirties, ) Bullet Butlers (late twenties) Gekkou no Carnevale (mid-thirties) Gleam Garden no Shoujo (mid-twenties) Hotel. (around thirty) Para-Sol (late thirties) Trouble@Vampire (mid-twenties) Tsukiakari Lunch (mid-twenties) Gothic Delusion (late twenties)
  5. I know a lot of Japanese people who use it... but I don't. For one thing, my reading speed varies wildly depending on my mood and how much food I've eaten recently, and for another, I dislike being completely hands-off.
  6. I don't enjoy rape or NTR... but a well-timed heroine death can frequently have a great impact. I prefer protag deaths though.
  7. Ok, first, I'm not done with AstralAir no Shiroki Towa. Two paths of the game have taken me almost twenty hours, despite the fact that I skipped the common route the second time around. I'm putting my thoughts so far down because I feel that if I wait until the game is over, I'll be overwhelmed by all the emotional ups and downs from the paths I haven't played yet. So far, I've played the paths for Tachibana Ochiba and Mizunose Kotori. Common The common route of this game is pretty long, lasting about nine to eleven hours (I finished it in eight). It has a number of emotional ups and downs, as it introduces you to the various characters (heroines and otherwise) and attaches you to them using the classic nakige technique of cathartic scenes. Honestly, even though the game is so blatant about what it is trying to do, it doesn't end up bothering you. Not to mention that the three kindergarteners (Marimo, Shiina, and Hazuki - who is Ochiba's little sister) are adorable and hilarious. This game doesn't really go for extreme laughs, tending to prefer warm, mildly amusing scenes and character dynamics that make you smile. Mizunose Kotori Kotori is a standoffish member of the student council and part of a rival organization of elfin. Her path is kind of funny, in how it gets started. I won't spoil it for you, but I was a bit exasperated at how a chuuni trope made its way into a nakige, then immediately went back to just being a nakige tsundere romance. That's not to say that Kotori is your classic brainless tsundere. However, she does consistently say the reverse of what she means when it comes to the protagonist. I laughed a lot during the early parts of this path, then cried a bit for the latter parts, before being mildly disappointed with the epilogue. Before you ask me why, you need to understand I'm almost always disappointed with game and VN epilogues. I like 'ten years after' epilogues, not 'two months' or 'one year' after epilogues. I like to see where the two have gone and how they have evolved since the events of the main story. This is the big reason why you will rarely if ever see me complimenting a game on how it handled the epilogue for a path. Tachibana Ochiba For those who have already met the Tachibana sisters, you can't help but love Hazuki (if you like kids, you just have to want to hug her when she cries and play with her to make her smile) and find Ochiba's essentially warm personality touching. Ochiba herself is comfort food for people who like nakige, as she becomes 'family' to the protag within the first few hours of the game, allowing him the room to not just be another bitter and somewhat isolated esper (an old chuuni cliche). To be honest, she and Hazuki are my favorite characters in the game, so far. If it weren't for my katana-obsession, I would have played her before Kotori. As comfort food, Ochiba's path takes a somewhat more 'classic' tact than Kotori's. I'm not saying her path is completely archetypical or that the archetypical aspects are bad. In fact, Favorite did such a good job with those archetypical aspects that I was honestly impressed, despite myself. 'If you have to make apple pie for Christmas, make the best-tasting apple pie there is.' is a metaphor that works really well for this path. This path made me break down and cry three times... and normally the most I'll cry for a single game is twice. The way this game makes you adore Hazuki and Ochiba inevitably makes this path hit you like a sledgehammer, because they've already paved the path for you to empathize with them more deeply than is the norm. I'm going to be taking the day off from VNs tomorrow (so I can sleep), because I haven't been sleeping that much of late. Too much work, plus two abnormally long VNs in a row, lol. I'll start Rinne's path on Sunday.
  8. lol... loveless sex happens surprisingly often in chuuni VNs... They might fall in love later, but sex as escapism isn't uncommon. In Abyss Homicide Club (which has really low sexual content) the protagonist sleeps with Non, despite the fact that he never does love her romantically, and he only falls in love with Kasuga after he has had sex with her. I never really understood why people hold that kind of thing against the protagonists... though I always had to laugh at Yoruko's scene in Comyu, because of whose route it is in. Also... Benio isn't worth being faithful to, in my mind. Someone that stubbornly naive needs to get a nice kick in the teeth on occasion. In chuuni, complete innocents like her are just annoying (Vermilion's Alice is another example of a type of heroine that has no business being anything other than Victim A in a chuuni VN). If you dislike Akihito for his sexual tendencies, you'll probably hate Sora in Devils Devel Concept even more, since he basically does whatever the hell he feels like at a given moment (though he never is actually unfaithful once he 'picks' one of them, unless it is at the girl's suggestion, because of his belief in the value of 'contracts'). Edit: Incidentally, Akihito fans and haters fought on the Japanese-language boards after the game first came out, even more intensely than you two are right now. I just have to grin at this.
  9. Akihito never stops being a man-whore... but tbh, I found Akihito more realistic in that fashion than most VN protags. Guys that age refusing no-strings sex offers? pfft
  10. lol... I hated that book.
  11. So? Just because one fearful long-dead corpse didn't want it to happen doesn't mean it isn't necessary for the betterment of the human condition.
  12. lol... should they have rights? In a sense of fairness, yes. However, in a practical sense, it isn't going to happen. I don't have a clear stance on this issue because I think the institution of formal marriage should be abolished and all children grown in tubes (seriously, not joking). I'm just waiting for the tech to get to that level. I also think romantic love is overrated, though I know I'm in the minority there. Are you happy with my response? I know one polygamous informal group marriage, and they said the key was not marrying under the law. As long as no one was unequal in the relationship, there wasn't a problem... it helps that all four of them are bisexual and they adore one another. The big problem, they said, is the estate tax, which would only become a problem if one of them dies. The title for the house is held jointly by all four of them, and they all work and pay equally toward the mortgage and child-rearing (regardless of whose child it happens to be). I know, for a fact, that it can work, even here. However, like I said before, it requires a rather unique outlook on things for it to work here. Understand, I'm first and foremost a pragmatist on social issues. I always think 'is it possible for this to change?' or 'is it possible for this to work?' as I attack a problem, then I chime in on it emotionally. I'm a strong believer in creating a preemptive objective analysis before I bother bringing my emotions into play. So, from a practical perspective, I label it as being impossible, at least within this or the next decade. However, emotionally, I'm willing to support those who want to bring that kind of change, as long as they don't link it to religious beliefs as a primary motivator. The Middle Eastern custom won't work here, either, because of our views on personal freedoms. If we ever gave the right of polygamy to the people here, we'd have to give it to everyone regardless of personal wealth or prosperity. That would be disastrous, as those most likely to go for it are those who wouldn't be able to support multiple spouses.
  13. Polygamy itself is not a problem, unless you are a person with strong dokusenyoku. It just depends on how well the people in the marriage get along, how they spread around their responsibilities, and whether everyone meets what is expected of them. I think most people in the US that have been married would agree that they wouldn't want multiple spouses. The plain and simple reason is that in the US, the desire for fairness is such a fundamental part of our political culture that marriage can't be a one-sided deal. It has to be something both sides can be happy with... and getting three or more people to agree in matters of sex and love is... like herding cats, at least in my experience. First, I don't deny the possible (and probable) happiness of women and men in some polygamist cultures, in particular those where the tradition is that prosperity allows for multiple spouses. Heck, why do you think that female homesexuality was frequently overlooked in some ancient polygamist cultures? The assumption that all the lines of relation go between the male and the females, with no sidelines is one that I find a bit amusing, to be honest. I have a cousin by marriage who was raised by two mothers (his father's two wives), after his father was killed. He's probably one of the most well-adjusted guys I've ever met. My grandfather hates his mothers (he's a parochial Christian) which has caused problems, but the rest of us are just fine having him married to my cousin. However, I have to stipulate that there are very few US-raised women or men that could handle the responsibility of being in a multiple-marriage. It takes a rather unique way of looking at the world not to be bothered by your partner sleeping with someone else, if you were raised in the US. To be blunt, there is quite simply no natural cultural machinery over here to allow for a relationship like that. I don't think even the Mormons could handle it, really (lol). Those studies about polygamy and child-raising are based aren't exactly good examples, because those living in extreme poverty should be avoiding having kids (or at least having multiple kids) in the first place, much less having multiple spouses. If you can't support them, don't have them. To raise happy, well-adjusted kids, you need to at least be able to feed them and yourself without worrying about immediate starvation. (I do understand the imperative to have lots of kids in areas with high child-mortality rates, but that just makes the problem worse with every generation) Also, the practice of literally selling 'women' into marriage makes it even worse, since it means that the man is even less likely to see the women as anything more than property. One interesting fact is that polygamy tended to become more common in older civilizations right after major droughts, wars, and plagues. This is because men and children are more likely to die in each of these situations, and the imperative to repopulate drives a cultural move toward objectification of women. Polygamy made a huge comeback in the Middle East after the Crusades, for instance. Another Japan fact *Clephas pauses for groans* is that marriage itself was uncommon in anyone that was of the farmer caste during the Tokugawa era. This was because marriage was generally only carried out as a means of transferring wealth, arranging the production of heirs, and bringing a talented or skilled individual into a family. Since the farmer caste generally didn't have any wealth of their own, they had no reason to marry formally.
  14. I do get tired of the stupid ending scenes... I mean, I like 'ten years down the road' epilogues, not those stupid 'two days after' ones. Hikoukigumo's main heroine had the best epilogue (from marriage to the grave and a bit after) for recent games I've encountered, for instance. However, I was a little disappointed with Semiramis no Tenbin... I wanted to see what Ami and the protag were like after graduation.
  15. Mmm... ninety percent of moege could have done with another forty to fifty lines in the epilogue, lol. Other than that... I could have done with a few extra scenes for several of Gurenka's endings (really, that was all that keeps the game off my top twenty VNs).
  16. Yes, Hapymaher was my VN of the Year for 2013.
  17. The formality of marriage in Japan, previous to the Meiji era, was a contractual obligation between two families or between an individual and the family he/she was entering. Love marriages were virtually unheard of in Japan previous to its reopening, and omiai (the practice of having two people of the opposite sex and appropriate age come together to a neutral location and see whether they could stand to live with one another) is a remnant of this. To be blunt, older Japanese mostly see marriage as a means of continuing the familial unit, rather than a matter of romance. It is the generation born post-WWII that started to seriously think of marriage as a romantic as well as contractual institution. Also, the concept of mukotori, the idea of taking a male into the family line and having him change his surname to match that of his wife, is also a remnant of this, as it is a practical institution for those who run a family business or craft and have no children who are talented or skilled enough to run it. Previous to WWII, it was still common for wealthy industrialists and nobles to take multiple spouses (seisai and mekake). Polygamy and its associated contractual and social institutions were only completely vanquished with their defeat at our hands and the post-WWII constitution.
  18. Incest is harmful to the gene pool rather than society... the nude pictures of children thing is harmful to individuals, both the perp and the victim. The banning of illegal drugs is responsible for the creation of powerful gangs throughout Latin America. Polygamy was approved and present in more than ninety percent of humanity's cultures at one point or another. Even in the few matriarchal societies, it was present. The reason it isn't present in Christian-related nations is because Christianity denied the validity of such marriages. However, Judaism (pre-historical) allowed wealthy individuals and kings to have multiple wives or husbands, though modern Judaism doesn't. Polygamy was just a pragmatic arrangement, rather than a moral one, originally because those with wealth were obligated to spend that wealth on multiple spouses and children, which made sense from a community standpoint. The reason polygamy is seen as taboo in modern cultures is precisely because it usually wasn't consensual (in fact, most marriages weren't consensual pre-Christianity). Edit: Consensual marriage and love-marriages were rare pre-Christianity, as spouses were generally decided by parents or other authority figures in civilized societies. That is because marriage generally involved an exchange of wealth, the merging of bloodlines, and new social ties, which all affected the family/clan/tribe as a whole. Thus, who someone married was rarely left to the individual if the society had any sort of wealth. The customs of 'buying' brides and dowries are remnants of this era, incidentally. At this point, it is just a tradition, rather than something that holds practical value as it did in the past. As such, it should be no surprise that most nations with such practices present seek to abolish them. The same goes for the tradition of anti-polygamy in western cultures... at this point it is just a taboo with no logical context. On the other hand, the legal issues (joint accounts, federal benefits, etc) surrounding marriage do make the legalization of polygamy somewhat impractical in the US, at least.
  19. My VN of the Month thread, where I read at least four of each month's releases and do a mini-review on them.
  20. Feel free not to be bound by the questions, as they were really only meant as suggested questions to ask yourself before posting, lol.
  21. AstralAir wins, I'll be starting it in a few minutes, lol. I request the thread be locked, since its purpose is over.
  22. http://vndb.org/v9913 Izayoi Fortuna is the latest entry from my backlog. Despite the tags, I don't really think this game could be called a nakige, though it does have its cathartic moments. The protagonist is a homeless traveler who arrives in Gojou, only to collapse and wake up to find his head resting on the lap of a young girl in a nun's habit. First... this game is really, really long. The common route alone lasts about seventeen hours and the heroine routes add another seven to eight hours each. Considering that there are four heroine routes... that's almost fifty hours right there. I really recommend playing this game in installments, because playing it like I did left me feeling a bit tired. While Shigure and Kona, the two heroines initially available, are fairly normal types (Kona being the rare intelligent genkikko and Shigure being your standard tsundere), Otome is a bit over the top, even for a deredere heroine, and Lucia is pretty much a saint. They did a really good job with the character dynamics, though the game probably would have been better off if they'd cut out about a third of the common route and another third of each of the heroine routes (there are a ton of daily life scenes in there, though there are almost no ichaicha scenes). The game is unusual in that the actual lovey-dovey stuff generally doesn't come up until the main conflict of each route is resolved, which struck me as an interesting way of doing things, since it keeps the romance from taking over the story. In exchange, the actual romantic episodes will seem truncated by moege-fan standards, and I think a lot of people who want pure-happy endings will object to the way they conclude Kona's story. Generally speaking, the story of each heroine route gets pretty shadowed (I won't go so far as to say dark, but it edges around it, especially in Lucia's route). Lucia's route is especially dramatic toward the end, and she fights for the throne of the game's cutest heroine with Shigure, when it comes to the falling in love part (I say cute, but in this case, the Japanese word hohoemashii seems like the most appropriate one). Now, what is my final impression of this game? Very high quality writing, an excellent scenario, with perhaps too much everyday life padding inserted throughout the game. The game's length and large amount of dialog-free narration will make it a bit too much of a hurdle for beginners, though someone used to cutting their teeth on games like Grisaia in Japanese shouldn't have much problem. I can recommend this for people who want a story outside the usual bounds of mostly non-violent VNs (not set in a school, lol) and for those who like stories about ghosts and demons.
  23. lol, I didn't have any problems with the ending of the final Grisaia game:
  24. Draculius. If you take the joke route, you can get a threesome ending and the true route is a harem ending (though a vampiric harem, lol).
  25. Everyone has their preferred protagonist personality traits... but have you ever considered what kind of situation you prefer the protagonist to be living in? Do you want your protagonists to have siblings? If so, how many and what is his relationship with them like? What about his parents? Are they living, are they dead? How is his/her relationship with them? Do you prefer fantasy or sci-fi like add-ons to your protagonist's personal issues? Do you prefer your protagonist to be mundane? Do you prefer him to be poor or rich? Do you just want him to be normal? Is he free to move about, or is he somehow restricted by circumstance? How does society see him? Is he the child of a criminal or maybe that of a brilliant scientist? Feel free to infodump, lol.
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