Maya

MILESTONE!
WE ARE AT 20%
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

The English patch for Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete is out! Download via either Google drive or Mediafire.

There really isn't much else to say beyond what I said in my previous post last week, but I appreciate all the support for not only this project, but also the previous projects, which thankfully have all seen completion, even if this one took longer than I had originally anticipated when I picked it up a year and a half ago. But as a long-time fan of visual novels, it's always nice to give something back to the community. So please enjoy the game released on the luckiest day of the year, Friday the 13th!

Finally at long-last, the script is now fully edited! Thank you to everyone who has been looking forward to seeing this patch get completed, which looks to be very close on the horizon now. For the time being, editing of the game's UI, in-game images and video editing led by nReus is still ongoing, but will hopefully be concluded soon (as in, before the end of February). Then the QC process will start where I play through the whole game and test the patch for bugs, along with any fixes to the script I may have missed during the editing process (which usually amounts to 2-3% of the script getting altered, if the last two projects are any indication).

And as coincidence would have it, the game is currently 50% off on DMM until March 10, so please consider buying the game if you can and haven't already. The patch will still work with whatever version you have available though, only the encryption for the patch will be different (which will be as easy as copy/pasting the correct files in the patch, which will be specified on release). So I'll be back on the next update.

Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
(In Search of the Lost Future)

Release
Download the patch (Google drive, Mediafire) (ver. 1.00, dated June 13, 2025)
Description
The school festival at Uchihama Academy is almost here, and with it, tensions at the school are at an all-time high. Not only because of scheduling disputes, but also due to rumors of mysterious incidents that have occurred lately on and off campus. Plus, this will be the last festival held at the old school building before moving to one newly being constructed. Akiyama Sou is a member of the notorious astronomy club, which has been tasked by the student council to both resolve these disputes, and also to calm any fears that have cropped up from those rumors.
One evening after an incident involving the judo club, Sou is recuperating in the infirmary when the building shakes and he hears a loud sound from one of the upper floors. Concerned, he investigates the fifth floor only to discover an unconscious naked girl who upon awakening seems to know him, later introducing herself as Furukawa Yui. The next day, she seeks out the astronomy club, expressing her desire to join.

VNDB link: https://vndb.org/v4880
Where to purchase
The game can be purchased legally from DMM (https://dlsoft.dmm.co.jp/detail/tin_0002/), but a Japanese proxy/VPN may be necessary to purchase it. In addition, there's an extra layer of DRM which requires the installation of the DMM Game Player software which then allows you to download and install the game. A Japanese VPN is necessary to use DMM Game Player, both to download the game once purchased, and also to launch the game, although once launched the VPN can be turned off. This is the copy I have obtained, but the patch will work with both the DMM version and the original disc version released in 2010, although the only difference will be in their encryption and the addition of one extra file to get the disc version to work on modern systems.
Project

The English localization project is being conducted by Studio Frisay as its third project following Imasugu Onii-chan ni Imouto datte Iitai! in 2022 and H2O √ after and another Complete Story Edition in 2023. As before, I (Tooko) will be doing all of the translating and editing of the script, and working on the game engine. Also as before, nReus has agreed to help with the rendering of the game's videos and also most of the image editing (you can largely thank him for the design of the logo above).

Studio Frisay website
Studio Frisay discord server
Progress
Programming: The game uses the Kirikiri engine, one of the most popular and versatile engines around. I've already taken care of the preliminary engine hacks necessary to construct the patch after a lot of trial and error, and also received some help to streamline the patch creation process once the project is complete.
Translation: The translation took place between January 19 and August 10, 2024, and I had already translated about 25% of the script by the time I announced the project in March. The game has 35,416 lines across 180 scenario files split up between the five heroine routes:
Kaori: 8519 / 8519: 100%
Airi: 7368 / 7368: 100%
Nagisa: 7356 / 7356: 100%
Yui 1: 8334 / 8334: 100%
Yui 2: 3839 / 3839: 100%
Total: 35416 / 35416: 100%
Relatively uncommon for this type of game, it doesn't have a separate common route and instead incorporates elements similar to a common route into the beginning of each route. There is also a set order the routes must be completed, which is the same order they're listed above. A full walkthrough will be provided with the patch to view all CGs and endings.
Images and videos: Of the 150 or so images that require editing in the game, almost all of them (134) are part of the UI, so it probably shouldn't take that long to finish them up. As for the videos, there are 4: 2 for the OP and 2 for the ED that will require typesetting for the lyrics and a few lines of other text. The images and videos are being edited by nReus.
Editing: Editing the script began on August 13, 2024 and concluded on February 12, 2025. Image and video editing continued until their completion in early June 2025.
QC: The quality check phase occurred over about a month involving a normal playthrough to check for any problems with the patch files and their rendering. The patch is scheduled for release on Friday, June 13, 22:00 UTC.
Progress link on Google Sheets

The main thing is that the script is 100% done. Unfortunately, some real world things have taken some time away from the project, but progress on the user interface is still ongoing. There were some additional unforeseen issues with it that made it more complex and time consuming than we would have originally hoped. A lot of the coding and rendering in this game was kind of unusual, in addition to some issues with running the game on modern systems (specifically the most recent version of Windows 11). Hopefully, we can get this all done and release the full patch in May.

Just a quick update since I haven't done one in a month. The QC of the script is currently at 63% with Kaori's and Airi's routes already complete, and Nagisa's route nearly done, too. The QC should be done by the very end of March, so we're currently aiming to release the full patch sometime in early April. There's still a lot of testing that needs to be done, but it shouldn't be too long now.

They are hypnotized

Well unfortunately there's no new year release, so I'll just assume they're have some real life issue when it come to working on this. Also if you need the news about this one, then they'll update it here when they ready seeing so far this is the only place where they gave the updates (No idea if they have Discord or not).

Hey, I've got some tools set up for working with the final complete edition of cross channel. I've sent you a friend request on discord. This really needs more eyes. I've seen the various translations (not entirely) and amaterasu is very readable but definitely has a lot of errors. And ghs is too full of bad writing. Im not going to dignify the other one. Since at this point, the only half competent version of CC is old, has no widescreen support, and can apparently be a bit unstable, I'd say this is as good a time as any to improve the official final release.

Too bad the guy wasted his time on a mediocre series. 

Hi! 
It's still alive but there are hardly any progress at the moment. Experienced some hard crashes when we were doing the beta testing that we weren't able to resolve. But I am looking into it, probably a problem with the repacker. 
I appreciate people are still waiting for this. Tbh, I lost any remaining motivation doing this, so yeah it may take more time. Sorry to disappoint mates.

Title: Shuffle! Essence+
Release date: 2004-01-30
Game/Creator: Navel
Description:
Ten years ago, the gateway to the Realm of the Gods and the Realm of the Demons was opened. Soon afterwards, the gods and the demons began migrating to our world. Now there are places where gods, demons and humans all study together, such as the school, Verbena Academy. Rin, a normal high school guy who is the envy of guys because he lives with and be pampered by the sweet, beautiful Kaede. It’s just a day like any other when two new transfer students show up in class: Sia, Princess of the Gods and Nerine, Princess of the Demons. Now Rin’s luck is about to change, for he has been chosen to take one of their hands in marriage. Whether down the hall, next door or from another realm, girls seem to be everywhere.
Progress:
At the time of writing this I just finished making a new engine to run this new translation running on Unity rather than me try to hack my way into a proprietary engine that seems only a few games used, the time wasted on hack my way through it could be spend in actually getting the project done faster. Mangagamer already translated the original Shuffle release and Yumehaven translated the PS2 release of it called "On The Stage" that added the Kareha and Mayumi's route into the game and which they released on Steam as a SFW version of it, their license ran out this 2021 and the game has been delisted ever since. Using those 2 release as basis for what is already translated what is left would be the new girls/routes included in the Essence release (Tsubomi , Sakura, Matsuri, Nadeshiko, Daisy)
Who's working on this at the moment?
Everything is being done by me at the moment, at the moment I am writing I'm migrating the already translated version into this new version
I don't know what else to write at the moment here so I will just drop my discord link in case you want to help out in like anything or just follow the updates of this project:
https://discord.unclebane.xyz/

As someone who has finished the game with the leaked patch and who knows Japanese (I can read faster/more comfortably in English though, hence the patch for a story heavy game like this where I can quickly read the unvoiced portions), I don't understand why it's not yet officially released (or at least why a more recent version is not released while the perfect final release is being cooked).
Here are the issues I've noticed with the leaked patch (all numbers are estimates, as I wasn't counting):
There were only a couple of times (maybe around ~4 times?) when something wasn't translated (as in - the Japanese text was left in the game), and what was untranslated were some very minor, not very significant lines. For all intents and purposes, everything is translated. There were a few times (maybe around ~10 times?) when the text overflowed vertically so the latter part of it was cut off. Not that big of a deal, and it was never in a critical moment. The first two chapters are visibly more polished; starting with the Saint Irene chapter it got a little bit more rough, but it was still fine. The biggest issue as far as translation goes that bothered me were cases where the subject/object of the text was totally wrong, and this happened relatively often (maybe a couple of dozen times? often enough to be annoying but not often enough to be a dealbreaker) and were extremely jarring, so while the text was mostly correct the meaning was completely wrong (e.g. imagine a sentence talking about Caim, but it was translated as if one of the girls is the subject, or the other way around). Looks like those lines were translated without looking at the context? General translation quality was good, and certainly more than good enough (although not perfect - there were plenty of times where I went "huh, that's fine, but I would have translated it in a different way..."; maybe that's what's holding up the release? probably unnecessary though as very few people would notice anyway) The very last ending scene of the game is somewhat broken; is still plays fine, but the text doesn't display correct (at least it didn't for me), so if you can't understand the dialogue from the audio it might slightly spoil the ending. All in all, some minor issues, but great work overall. if you don't want to wait then the leaked patch is good enough to enjoy the game, and you won't be doing yourself a huge disservice by using it.

I was in Japan recently and I stumbled across THIS in Akihabara for 1,400 yen! I had to grab it!
 

It took almost 2 weeks longer than I had originally hoped, but now the translation is finally complete after nearly 7 months of working on it. Granted, I had taken a more leisurely approach to the translation this time compared to when I did Imaimo and H2O, but I feel I still managed to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Suffice it to say, I'm relieved the biggest and most tedious portion of the patch process is now done so I can now move on to editing the game's images, of which almost all that require editing are for the UI, so not that bad really in comparison to the previous two projects. It always feels wonderful when the UI gets done because it feels like an official localization, which is generally what I'm striving for each time I've worked on these projects to make playing the game as seamless and enjoyable as possible.
Anyway, in the meantime while I'm working on the images, I'd also like to point out that the game is currently 50% off on DMM for the next two days, and if possible, please consider buying the game. So, I'll be back for another update either this or next month.

It took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but now Nagisa's arc is finally complete, bringing the total script to just about 66% complete. Her arc in particular has 3 lengthy H scenes all in a row right at the very end, so that was partially the reason that it took me a bit longer. But anyway, there are just about 12,000 lines left, and it all revolves around Yui split into two parts, Yui 1 and Yui 2. I'm still hoping to get the translation done by no later than July, so it shouldn't be that long before I get into editing the images and then the script. So I'll probably have another update next month sometime as we approach the grand finale.

About a month later, and now another arc is complete, this time with Airi. That brings the current total to about 45% complete for the entire script. Although there's still about 20,000 lines to go, it always feels better once I get over the 50% mark, which I should hit sometime next week in Nagisa's arc. Funnily enough, Nagisa's arc is almost exactly the same size as Airi's, even down to the amount of text itself, with only 482 characters separating them. Both arcs were written by the same author, Saitou Kenji, so that may have had something to do with it. So I'll get back to working on it and have another update next month.

For Astral Air, even without info from Discord it's still easy to figure out that Nekonyan still have the translated script, moreso if we follow them ever since they have the name Shinku Translation way back in 2015 to 2016 (Or just search VNDB). So yeah, unless they're very careless so much they lost the script, obviously they should still have Astral Air script. That said, to turned Astral Air translated script into English release took a lot of effort and patience, one of which is definitely can't be helped if they get a random reviewer in the review process who then randomly decide to ban the VN. Another thing to note is the programming, in which they also need to wait because Favorite engine force the user to change the language to Japan (On date and time display) just to play their VN properly, in which its also happen with Sakuramoyu here.

I was the editor on Houkago Cinderella when the project was dropped, joining a few months before it was dropped due to the takedown notice. At the time, I was tasked with focusing on editing Youka's route and was about half-way finished with the route, but due to the takedown, nothing I worked on was released in the partial patches that came out. I was not in the conversation when the takedown was requested, but based on statements, the translator was messaged to stop the project from someone at NekoNyan since they are partners with Hooksoft and the image editor made a statement along those same lines(saying it was NekoNyan) in the Discord server when announcing the project was dropped. Though when news spread and when it was announced it was worded like it came from Hooksoft(the AfterschoolTL's blog post stating "HOOKSOFT representative") themselves since NekoNyan was acting as Hooksoft's representatives due to the partnership. Part of the reason why things shifted to not announce what future projects, if any, are. The translator was honestly surprised they weren't hit sooner by a takedown notice or something, and so was I. 

Most likely they'll have to finish the Iroseka trilogy first, then maybe Sakura Moyu after

Well, ...how should I say this? Perhaps I shouldn't update the VNDB entry when it was released so that VNTS person from 4chan didn't caught it and then inevitably spread the news that caught up one of Nekonyan's staff attention considering Sakuramoyu is from their FAVORITE company (Sorry for the intentional pun).
That aside, I understand very much that this is neccesary evil seeing that they'll face huge risk if a fan released the patch of the VN from their partner companies, especially if the company caught the wind of it. Personally speaking though, I didn't exactly like on how it's going after all even if I understand the situation.
in the end, sorry for the rambling and what was done is already done. So, let's just move on from this complex matter.
PS - Forgot to say congratulation for the common route patch release, and good luck on whatever you'll do next.

Just created this account for the sole purpose of writing a comment here 
I heard about Sakura Moyu a while back and as I kept digging for opinions and review, I found nothing but praise for it. As such, I'm really happy you decided to undertake this giant project for the sake of sharing a story you love with the rest of the English speaking world. And for me, that is is key point, that you love what you are translating. Now, I apologize if this is a bit cheesy, but when I hear about any big localization company picking up a VN, I'm usually really skeptical about the quality of whatever they plan to release. Hearing you say that you absolutely adore this game, and that is even your reason to learn the language, I immediately went "yup, that's it, I feel pretty good about this one". The skills needed for this can be learned and improved along the way, but someone's devotion for a piece of fiction can't. If you're willing to commit and pour everything you have into this, iterating over and over until you are satisfied, I wholeheartedly believe it's in good hands. No one will be more demanding than a true fan, after all. Heck,  for me, even the fact that some things ended up being translated a bit too literally is a good sign. Sure, there might be inexperience, but also extreme care being put into not altering the original message.
Ok, cheesy remarks over. I'd love to contribute to the project somehow, but I can't even offer my help as a proofreader, what with English not being my native language and being unable to pick up on odd-sounding stuff. Regardless, you have all my support and appreciation for what is worth. Keep it up man!

Only read a bit to check the quality of the translation (already finished the game long ago) and yeah, I agree that the translation is fine, but way too direct so lots of them just sounded either awkward or textbook-ish. Definitely requires some serious editing.
Just a bit of advice from me, but rather than keeping the translation at point-blank range from the original, try to think about how you would say a sentence like that irl instead. Worked quite well for me before.

Amazing. One of my most awaited fan TLs. Can't wait to see this come to fruition eventually.

I think "from now on" instead of "next" would look better in that top image. It looks like you made a lot of progress tho. Looking forward to it.