Clephas

Minamijuujisei Renka or Komorebi no Nostalgica, probably... though the latter is possibly a bit too deep into sci-fi philosophy to really be considered a charage.

Yes, I did. Edit: To clarify, nitpicking counts as a personal attack. Once I'll tolerate as an honest question or pointing out something that irritates you. I won't tolerate it twice in the same blog post on the same matter.

He has set up his 'personal room' at the house he is renting for his otaku stuff. His wife isn't an otaku, but she is understanding of his need to watch anime for ten hours a week in order to remain sane. Also, some of the other staffers at the embassy are light or medium otakus, so he has people to chat with irl, apparently.

lol... well, no one ever said 'golden age' believers didn't have tunnel vision.

For a certain type of 'family values' male who believes women should spend their lives solely on raising children, yes. Teenage pregnancies are something he can shake his head woefully at (like so many abstinence morons here) while stating his regrets that they didn't just refrain from having sex in the first place.

*sighs* Originally, it was just a slang word usually used in reference to appliances or cars, the same as calling an appliance or car a 'lemon' in the US. You can guess the full meaning of it when referring to heroines by this. Edit: To be clearer, the 'personality' of a heroine includes her habits, hobbies, and daily lifestyle as well as her psychological profile...

Tokyo's mayor is a famous reactionary nationalist and a 'conservative' 'family values' supporter, and that board is loaded with his people... so this shouldn't surprise anyone, in retrospect.

For those who are interested, here is the first real comedy VN of the year... The protagonist, Takuma, having returned to his hometown to live alone in his family's old house, finds that it has collapsed in on itself, and, desperate for a place to stay, ends up staying at the homes of his four childhood friends (osananajimi). This leads to various hilarious antics and situations, with most of the heroines being 'ponkotsu' types (meaning that they are the kind of girls no sane man would want as a girlfriend if he knew their real personality). First is Kyou, the 'older sister' of the group... to be blunt, she is the single laziest human being I've ever seen in a VN. She and her mother are the type that seek marriage solely so that their husband can feed them, clean up after them, and support them financially. If she tries to cook, explosions ensue; she won't even consider doing laundry; and her room looks like mine did in middle school (I never really did see the point of putting things away back then, lol). Incidentally, don't expect any of this to change (the heroines are fundamentally ponkotsu types from beginning to end). Second is Hiyori, the blonde idiot daughter of the owner of a cafe that specializes in Japanese sweets and teas. She is air-headed, clingy, and she has a tendency to do stupid things just because she feels like it. Worse, her mother, a widow, takes aim on Takuma almost from the moment of his arrival. The third is Ayaka... Ayaka, when compared to her family, is a quite normal girl. However, with an OCD mother who thinks men are filthy pathogens, a little sister who is yandere over Ayaka herself, a little brother who is addicted to masturbation, and an overprotective father... that really isn't saying much. In reality, she has a strong interest in sexual matters, wants Takuma to be her oniichan, and is very much a schemer/manipulator by nature. The fourth girl is Rito, the childhood friend that Takuma used to think was a guy. This leads to an immediate argument, of course, but she quickly turns into a clingy, emotionally dependent girl who alternates between aggressively seeking Takuma's affections and snarling viciously at anyone who gets in the way. With that particular cast of characters and a protagonist who tends to want to turn everything into a joke himself, you have a recipe for a first-class comedy game. Of course, most of it is boke-tsukkomi (manzai) type humor, save for the fact that all the characters are running jokes in and of themselves. There are no real serious points in this VN, and the only time the story actually feels romantic is during Rito's path... and that actually made it the least enjoyable of the four main paths. There are also three endings other than those of the four main heroines... a 3P ending with the yandere imouto, an extra ending with Nanako (the girl who steals Takuma's food all the time), and a 'normal ending' that probably would have ended up as a yaoi ending in some other games, lol. Overall, I left this VN feeling laughed out. I probably won't replay it, because I don't imagine it would be funny twice, but I honestly enjoyed it for what it was... an excuse to break out into real-life laughter to the point where my throat and head started to hurt worse than they already are (I have the flu right now, yaaay!).

Despair: Houkago no Futekikakusha True pure love: Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana RPG: Ikusa Megami Zero Three Kingdoms: Shin Koihime Musou Kakumei (once all three are released) Everyday Evil/amoral: Devils Devel Concept Vampires: Vermilion Bind of Blood Classic Heroism: Evolimit Ghosts: Nanairo Reincarnation Bakumatsu: Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier Sengoku Jidai: Sengoku Koihime Salvation of the heroines: Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no

Japan and sex education is a lot like the US and the oil industry... both are incapable of having appropriate/healthy relationships with one another and telling the truth isn't considered a virtue.

Japan wasn't originally this bad... but the West has been this way since the early nineteenth century.

The Southern US is just as bad, if you pay attention... it is all about abstinence...

*Clephas is already forgetting Riddle Joker due to a lack of memorability*

For Children: Nothing For pre-teens: Clannad For Teenagers: Tokyo Babel For young adults: Narcissu (teenagers are too easily influenced, but this is best read before you hit your mid-twenties) For full Adults: Dies Irae For Middle-aged or older: Erect! (lol)

For highest production values, I'd probably pick one of Minori's more recent titles. For aesthetics, Hapymaher.

This is Unobara Nozomu's second attempt at the mystery genre (for those who are interested, he also wrote Yurirei, Teito Hiten Daisakusen, and Fairytale Requiem) after the dramatic failure of Shinsou Noise last year. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to this game, despite its interesting concept. This game, like many detective mystery type VNs, possesses a deduction system... but thankfully, it also lets you skip that portion at the click of a button (thus avoiding the story disruption that is the norm for games with deduction gameplay). The story takes place in Shiraori City, a small city that has a massive murder rate, with most of them being carried out by serial killers, who seem to bloom like poisonous flowers by the handful in the city (incidentally, the manslaughter and incidental killing rates are much lower compared to the population than in the rest of the country, apparently). In this city, due to the sheer workload of all those murder cases, is a system whereby young people with unusual talents are taken on and trained as student investigators. The protagonist, Tohno Keisuke is one of these, a young man with the ability to see the factor that made a victim's fate certain when he touches their corpse (or their ashes, hair, etc.). This ability has, with the help of his fellow investigators, allowed him to find several serial killers. His school's 'team' of student investigators works under the label of 'mushikui' (a club supposedly devoted to finding better ways to eat bugs). The members of the club are Tendou Yui, a girl with an extremely strong sense of empathy that allows her to read the emotions and thought patterns of others from the most minor clues; Himuro Chitose, an almost autistic girl with an excellent memory and capacity for rational thought that has her training to be a profiler; Saotome Haya, an aggressive girl with immense physical abilities who hates criminals and loves nothing more than beating the shit out of them; and Kiryuu Azusa, the club's overseer, a teacher who is also a trained detective. The game consists of three heroine paths and one true path. There are eight endings other than the true one (five of which are bad or dead endings). The heroine paths in this game are about of equal quality, each adding pieces to the greater puzzle of the strange city the characters live in and bringing each heroine to life in turn. The protagonist, Keisuke, is something of a fractured spirit, constantly stabbed with pain left from his past (I'm not going to spoil you about it, even though it is revealed relatively early in the common route why this is), and how the heroines bring him out of this differs radically from path to path. ... trying to avoid spoilers in a mystery game is a serious pain in the butt. I can't really say anything in particular about the heroine paths without spoiling things, so I'll restrict myself to saying that each heroine path covers an individual case (a series of serial killings), and the mysteries themselves are relatively interesting on their own. Chitose's perp is probably the most obvious, whereas Haya's perp is the most obscure (clues are more subtle). There is a lot of psychopathy and disturbed minds in this game, and that includes the heroines and the protagonist (they all have issues, though not as bad as the killers they chase, lol). The true path follows the mystery of the 'why' and 'what' of what happened six years ago (the events that resulted in Keisuke gaining the Butterfly Seeker ability and becoming obsessed with saving as many lives as possible). It reveals, piece by piece (drawing on the 'pieces' revealed in each heroine's path in part) the full truth of both the events six years previous and the events still occurring in Shiraori City. The ending of the true path is a bittersweet one, and - unlike most such paths - it isn't a heroine ending. While there are some things to be optimistic about for the characters, the fact remains that theirs is a life surrounded by tragedy (oh and watching Yui during a certain scene was scarier than any of the serial killers in this VN, lol). I left this VN feeling relatively good about it... which is rare for me, when it comes to mystery VNs. A lot of it was that I liked the characters, the music, and how they handled the actual cases. Another part of it was that Keisuke was a surprisingly good protagonist. Overall, this was a good VN, though I'm not likely to pick it for VN of the Month this time around (this month is waaay too packed). For those who are interested, Dergonu is handling Akumade, Kore wa ~ no Monogatari and fun2novel is handling Etatoto. The simple reason is that there are just too many March releases for one man to handle, and they were interested in those two games. Edit: In retrospect, I do have one big complaint about this VN... there is no Azusa path. Azusa would make an excellent heroine, and it seemed a bit forced to make all the heroines around the protagonist's own age, considering how mature he is, in general.

https://vndb.org/c14278 https://vndb.org/c12817 Best imouto path ever...

That's actually a harder question for me than I thought it would be... I wouldn't want to be the protagonist of most of my favorite VNs, because most of those guys go through pure hell, lol. https://vndb.org/v5932

As a rule, avoiding pop culture references and slang is a good idea. One thing I don't like is when someone goes off and searches for an equivalent pop culture reference to a Japanese pop culture reference and utterly screws it up... Also, Japanese usage of foul language is a lot more mild than in America... there is a much more limited range of words, and some of them are borrowed from English or other language, because Japan didn't have them in the first place, lol. Leftovers from an era when saying the wrong thing to a person above your social status could result in beheading or forced suicide, most likely...

*smiles wryly* most producers end up in the Neutral stage at some point.

It is hard to say... the line between neutral and positive is pretty much composed of ignorance. If you are ignorant of localization issues, you don't have a reason to care in the first place. Neutrals are more 'I know but I don't care that much' types.

Yay, Clephas is contributing to a controversial topic in his blog! *listens for the hisses and boos of his loving public* More seriously, I'm not out to bash fantranslators, localization companies, or anyone else involved with the process. I've been on both sides (consumer and producer) and I can honestly say that I can see all four sides of the argument (the producer side, the negative consumer side, the neutral consumer side, and the positive consumer side). The Positive Consumer Based on my personal experience (beginning with jrpgs in the nineties), most people begin in this stage. Honestly, I didn't know enough to figure out when things were badly translated, and as long as the lines weren't too out there (spoony bard, lol), it never really got to me. There are plenty of people out here who remain in this stage forever, never taking interest one way or the other in the translation aspects of things... and that is perfectly natural. Most Americans (if not people from other countries) are essentially linguistic bigots, and as a result, they won't care if things are wrong as long as they can't tell just by playing a game, reading a book, or enjoying an anime or film. The Negative Consumer Most people with at least some knowledge of Japanese end up in this stage at some point. The reasons are manifold, but the biggest one is the 'literalist disease'. Almost everyone who gets involved with translation or knows enough Japanese to nitpick is under a peculiar delusion... that 'Literal Japanese to English translation isn't an oxymoron'. Unfortunately for their delusions, my personal experience and the experience of many others does not bear this particular one out. Literalist translation is a delusion born of a misapprehension of the Rosetta Stone concept... basically because we can generally match up most words with their equivalents in our own languages given a decent reference point, that perfect translations are both possible and should be provided without hesitation by mechanical translators (often literally). However, this ignores two major issues... the cultural basis for the formation of modern language's concepts and the difference in how the language is structured (grammar in other words). This isn't the only reason for ending up in this stage... some people are in it because it makes them feel superior or they like trolling 'lesser beings' (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). Others simply disagree with the way the translation is handled or the usage of censorship. There are innumerable reasons for ending up in this stage, and that is the reason why it is the single largest one in the 'experienced' community. The Neutral Consumer This is the smallest grouping... mostly because it pretty much demands that you have resolved to stop caring one way or the other about localization quality. The most common reason to end up here is because you can play VNs, watch anime, and read manga/LNs without a localization, so the concept becomes irrelevant (or at least of less interest) to you. Another is that you get tired of being trolled (or trolling yourself) and decide to shut off your emotions about it. Last of all are the people who just want to 'spread the word' and don't really care about quality issues (people who are just happy VNs are getting localized). Since a lot of this group don't even buy localizations except to 'support the cause', this group has a lot less invested in the arguments, overall. The Producer ... need I mention that being on this side sucks? No matter how good a job you do, you get bashed by someone, and inevitably someone is going to decide to nitpick every one of your word choices. Literalists will hate you for not doing exactly what they want, generalists will hate you for picking obscure/dead words from actual literary English (as opposed to spoken English) because the concepts involved are dead in modern English, and everyone else will hate you for censorship or because you are too slow. While you get combative people or apologetic people from this side every once in a while, most just stop paying attention to the noise, for the sake of their mental health.

Speaking from experience with other companies, you'll see a much more drastic fall in quality than this before a company seriously begins to decline. Tokyo Babel's emergence after Evolimit is often remarked upon as a last effort to squeeze the writer before his contract ended, which is probably why the human drama and humor isn't as good as the earlier games by that writer. Yuzusoft, unlike most companies that put out large games, gets enough back from raw sales to justify regular releases. As a result, they are more likely to take fan reactions seriously when they release the next game. Why? Because financially healthy companies are more likely to pay attention when something looks to present a threat to the future health of the company. Because Yuzusoft has, in the past, avoided excessive patterning in its stories (even if the H and ichaicha is patterned down to the last detail), they've always had a higher retention rate than many other charage companies (you can usually depend on seven or eight new charage companies popping up then dying after a single release each year). They have a definite 'style', but if you look at their past releases, they've avoided essentially writing the same game over and over. Classic charage, fantasy charage, chuunige, ojousama-ge... they are a lot more flexible than the industry standard. For that reason, I think they are likely to bounce back. I think Riddle Joker is a fluke (or at least I hope it is). Companies that are more likely to die out are the ones that are over-focused on a single niche market (my beloved chuunige companies, for instance) or who have abandoned that flexibility. Of course, there are exceptions like AXL, which will probably be still making VNs in a similar style until their artist and writers have all retired, lol.

Yay, petty sarcasm! lol I went ahead and did Chisaki's path in between playtime on Butterfly Seeker (murder mysteries tire me for an entirely different set of reasons). Like Nicola's path in Dracu-riot (yet another 'echo'), it is a sub-heroine path and lacks the drama attempts of the previous ones. I liked Chisaki as a character, and in retrospect, I feel like she should have been afforded a full route, rather than the half-assed one she was given... However, I can see why they did it that way, since her function in the common route and other paths is mostly as an appendage of Nanami.