Clephas

Keep in mind that these are untranslated: Meishoku no Reiki Madou Koukaku The other Bunny Black games Venus Blood Hypno Venus Blood Ragnarok Venus Blood Frontier Eiyuu x Maou Ouzoku

While the difference was there even back in the nineties, we really started to see a gap in VA skill after the turn of the century, when the Japanese VA industry became so... industrialized that training classes for voice actors began to produce a certain baseline level of quality like clockwork. At that point, we started to see fewer and fewer of the 'squeaky' VAs that were prevalent in the nineties and individual VAs began to be typecast completely the same way a lot of actors are here in the US. I have only rarely seen an awkward VA moment in Japanese VNs or anime since the turn of the century, something that says more about the quality of the industry as a whole (both the voice-actors themselves and the directors who time how the voices are inserted and guide them on how they want the lines phrased and emphasized) than anything else I can think of in particular. For people who ask me which I prefer, I generally just shrug and say 'the original language' whether it is English or Japanese, but if you ask me which is more technically consistent, it is definitely the Japanese industry. For better or worse, those in the Japanese VA industry have a higher base standard than the Western industry, where 'good enough is good enough' outside of blockbuster million-dollar material most of the time (such as AAA video games, shows, and movies). That isn't to say that the English baseline for VA quality won't be dragged upward in the future or the Japanese downward, it is that so far, we have hovered in this same state for over ten years, which is a mark of priorities more than anything else. VA's here in America are a more niche industry (the far lower amount of agencies catering to the training and production of voice-actors is one reason for this), with most of them either aiming for kids movies and shows or for the video game industry, leaving a large gap in talent in areas these don't cover. This can lead to awkward moments in English dubs of anime and Japanese video games (though often I think that is the fault of the director rather than the VAs themselves, since it seems to be incorrect emphasis or mismatched lines), though there is a LOT less incidence of this than there was when I first became an otaku, lol. Edit: To clarify, I firmly believe that my preference for 'original language' will eventually be reduced to just that, a preference, at some point. Right now it is still (to a point) backed up by the actual quality of the experience, but that isn't a state that will last forever. Edit: Oh yeah, and the lack of an English-speaking version of Juurouta Kosugi is a huge negative... no one plays old men and narrators like he does.

1 and 4 basically tie in together to combine to create my most hated VN situation... 2 is the reason why I think 80% of all osananajimi routes shouldn't exist.

Set all settings to Japanese, including your clock, region and locale, and (if it still doesn't respond) keyboard. Edit: This is a common result with some VNs where these settings aren't followed.

Valkyrie Runabout: https://vndb.org/v16476 Relatively easy to translate, a solid cast of characters, and the last work by the writer of Shuffle before his unfortunate death in 2016. It is an isekaimono about the aftermath of saving the world from the demon king, focused on the summoned Great Sage and his humorous bevy of weird deredere heroines.

lol... While I never use walkthroughs for straight-out roleplaying games, It's been over a decade since I haven't used one for a VN. The reason is simple... I'm not interested in finding my own way through endless choices only to find out that I got the 'normal' ending or some random bad ending... Tsukihime was enough to teach me my lesson on that.

PC. VNs are best played when you have time in a private setting.

The normal/average/idiot protagonist. The talented protagonist who stops being talented the second the heroine route starts. The 'fake relationship' trope. The 'formal date' trope, where the heroine and protagonist follow conventional dating ideals regardless of their own personality or interests. The high schooler protagonist. The tsundere osananajimi heroine who denies she loves the protagonist so strongly that the protagonist (most of them being dense about tsundere) believes it and/or stops seeing her as a female. The 'month to love' trope in charage (where it only takes a month from the first meeting for the whole group to be in love with the protagonist and go through most of the heroine route). The 'next day' epilogue, where the epilogue deliberately avoids describing the characters' future so that they can set up for a fandisc after story that turns out to be only H content, thus having made me waste eighty dollars... I could go on and on about this, lol...

Sanah... even you have to admit that most of the gameplay hybrids worth playing have higher difficulty levels (7-8) even without the interface text. The fact that you are still way behind on the VB games despite your love for them says everything, lol.

If you want a good comparison to MLA, situation-wise the Blue Gender anime is pretty similar in type, albeit without mechs. To be blunt, the 'already defeated by aliens and just barely hanging on' theme was rampant throughout anime and manga for years... but MLA and Sousei Kitan Aerial are the only Japanese VNs I've encountered that straight-out replicate the Independence Day theme. Edit: I forgot about Tokyo Necro... but it isn't a plague but rather people using nanomachines and their own DNA to control corpses. I'm pretty sure that I recall that it isn't infectious, though being injected with the nanos is fatal.

To a greater or lesser extent, that's true of any sci-fi setting... the problem with chuunige that tends to make them go up into the ranges above 8 is because of the ambiguity built into the Japanese language being used to its fullest extent to paint a picture the uninitiated can't even follow. I love chuunige, but I've never been under any illusions that most people will be able to read them in Japanese and actually understand what the writer is trying to get across.

I know what you are talking about... but one thing that needs clarification is that most of the sci-fi terms are ones that have clear and flat translations to English, which means that it is just a matter of extending your vocab. In terms of grammar and linguistic choices, it isn't all that hard. I'd give it about a 6.5 on the 1-10 rating scale, with 2-4 being dialogue-only materials (anime, manga, etc), 4-5.5 or so being most charage, and 6-8 being most plotge. 8-10 is generally something you only see on stuff by Light, Nitroplus, and the makers of Ever17. Edit: To further clarify, most general science and science fiction terms have clear translations to ALL major languages because the scientific community makes an effort to eliminate ambiguity in such matters. As such, it is mostly a matter of sci-fi and science knowledge to grasp it. Some of the stuff involved with Cinema's design is really cool and cutting-edge in concept, but even then, the concepts are well-known and established, even if it is only within a science-fiction or theoretical sense. The only real problem is whether you have an interest in science-fiction or not, lol.

I previously did a simple 'starter list' of relatively easy to read VNs. However, they were all over the place, and the likelihood of anyone finding a VN that was spot-on in that list was unlikely. As such, I decided to make a list of five recommendations from each genre for someone who is just starting to play untranslated VNs but isn't up to reading the hardest language out there. Keep in mind that chuunige and plotge in general have - at the very least - slightly inflated difficulty levels as a result of the writers' tendencies and the fact that narrative/literary Japanese is fundamentally different to those accustomed to dialogue-only mediums like anime or manga. I'm excluding gameplay hybrids because the sheer amount of crap you have to read without a text hooker in those means beginners won't be able to handle them for the most part without some kind of interface patch or guide. Chuunige Bloody Rondo (note that I don't recommend this because it is awesome - it isn't - but because it is heavy on slice-of-life for a chuunige and relatively dialogue-heavy) Sora no Tsukurikata Unjou no Fairy Tale Ryuukishi Bloody Saga (if you want to, you can play the dark rapegame prequel... but I don't recommend it for the faint of heart) Draculius Nakige (note that I'm not including anything Purple Soft and Saga Planets because their games are heavy on wordplay that even an experienced reader will sometimes miss out on) Haru to Yuki Koi Suru Doll to Omoi no Kiseki Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru (for true beginners, I recommend this or Haru to Yuki for lower difficulty levels from this part of the list) Sci-fi Plotge Komorebi no Nostalgica Re:Birth Colony Lost Azurite Fake Azure Arcology Fantasy Plotge (some action but not action-focused or chuuni) Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai Curio Dealer Hyakka Ryouran Elixir (yep, these are all AXL games... simply because no one else does this anymore) Tiny Dungeon series (this is harem, so if you don't like harem, you probably won't like this) Moege/Charage (Yuzu Soft aren't included because their reading difficulty is often too high for beginners) Haruru Minamo ni (Straight fantasy ero charage with just enough plot to keep it from being mundane/boring) Love Revenge (If you want to know what my idea of a 'decent charage' is based off of, play this) Natsuiro Recipe (for those who want their heart healed in a rural Japanese setting) Kanojo to Ore no Lovely Day Miscellaneous Plotge Yomegami: My Sweet Goddess! Satsukoi Tsuisou no Augment Utsuge Inochi no Spare ('soft' utsuge) Konata yori Kanata made (a 'soft' utsuge probably the only true kamige on this list) Houkago no Futekikakusha ('hard' utsuge) Kanojo wa Tenshi de Imouto de (yes, despite appearances, this is a soft utsuge)

Zombie/Cthulhu: https://vndb.org/v19974 (Vampire apocalypse depending on ending) https://vndb.org/v1060 (Below is aftermath of AI uprising/post peace process) https://vndb.org/v10958 Aliens: https://vndb.org/v10447 https://vndb.org/v21524 Technically AI uprising, though the game name is a spoiler: In a weird way, an alien invasion: https://vndb.org/v13904 https://vndb.org/v21524 AI apocalypse: https://vndb.org/v20860 Cthulhu Mythos style Alien Invasion: https://vndb.org/v492 Stuff that might be close to what you want: https://vndb.org/v11865 https://vndb.org/v5843

My second list 1. True Immortality (with the exception that I can destroy myself, soul and all, at will) 2. A pocket dimension holding endless amounts of whatever wealth exists in the place and time I am 3. The power to subsist on ambient radiation and sunlight (yes, that is the one that absolutely has to be there)

The ability to understand and read all languages. Endless youth The ability to transfer myself into a fully realized version of the 2D universe at will.

I really wish there was a true Rusalka route in Dies Irae, aside from the side-stories. She won the character poll in Japan for a reason, lol.

*sighs* specify whether you want translated-only please... otherwise I'll spam you with an infinitely long list of nakige and utsuge that will never be translated, lol. Hapymaher and Tokyo Babel for translated.

It's cruel to ask someone with as much experience as I've had what his favorite is... but I'll name my top six instead.

h-code wiki for the former. Check Hongfire's VNR tutorial for the second.

Did you search the anime-sharing thread and the h-code wiki?

Butterfly Seeker and Sakura no Mori Dreamers

RPG: Ikusa Megami Zero, Ikusa Megami Verita Strategy: Venus Blood Hypno, Venus Blood Lagoon