Moekou

Do people wear traditional monster stuff for Halloween mostly, or mostly cosplay? Marisa roams the streets!

Ah, that reminds me of something relevant to this thread. Joachim mentioned earlier it was shocking how a good person like Shirou could actually think someone being raped is "teaching her femininity." Well, sadly, from what I heard, this is actually the attitude many teachers have towards bullying. A number simply believe it is teaching the children to not try to stand out, as society tends to geared more towards conformity than Western nation. Thus, there is a culture of fear towards standing out from the norms as that makes one a target of bullying, and since bullying is pervasive even outside of high school, teachers take the attitude that it's just prepping kids to deal with the real world or college. "It can't be helped" is a popular Japanese idiom and gets applied to these situations, where even teachers just accept it as status quo. This attitude is also a reason why, for example, porn is still censored in Japan even though the Western countries that demanded this in the first place have long since stopped doing it. No politician is willing to stand out out of fear of being targeted.

Oh, I love Yume Miru Kisuri as it was my first serious VN (well, besides maybe Narcissu which I also recommend, it's a short and minimalistic freeware VN). Sadly as you mentioned, even though some people thought the bullying was just for drama, it's pretty accurate and a widespread occurrence. Anyone daring to defend the victim would become the next victim, and even worse, sometimes the victim may even turn on their defender to try to win "cool" points with the popular crowd. Aeka~! ;_; Makes it difficult for me to take the other routes because I have to ignore her, but that also makes a point, as the narration goes out of the way to always tell you that the two girls you did not help out basically have their lives screwed. It really reminds the reader of all the silent suffering going on behind people's backs that most just ignore.

Thanks for your work Aaeru! I hope you enjoy the process! Good luck!

What did this explicit tale akin to Lord of the Flies make you feel?

The Genius of Sappheiros, a Touhou doujin game, is a really good RPG that brings back an old-school feel while offering a lot of new ideas and has lots of customization. Almost every boss after the first two have their own unique traits and tricks, making it very different from many RPGs where you just spam your strongest spells until you win. You have a dozen characters that are actually unique and have their own niches in battle, and you are encouraged to use them all, rather than just stick with one party of your choice and pretend the other characters don't exist like in most RPGs. You don't really need to know Touhou to play it. And there's a LOT of content, I think I have over 200 hours in the game. If you loved JRPGs from the SNES era, you should really give this game a try. Be warned that it also has old-school difficulty, but a new rerelease called Genius of Sappheiros Weekend contains an easy mode that halves enemy stats...

I don't know why this part is surprising. It was pretty much the mindset of "gentlemen" to protect ladies and put them in their place when things got out of line. This is found in many classic literature like The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, which is literally about taming a strong female character until she became a docile wife. They genuinely don't think of it as wrong and actually believe they are doing them a favor. It's similar to how some sympathetic characters that are actually supposed to be most friendly to slaves in old books still come across as incredibly racist by modern standards, even though they genuinely mean well. In fact, I believe it is one of the main reasons why things like slavery lasted so long-because people who engaged in it genuinely believed that they were still being perfectly good people and there was nothing wrong with the behavior. Society has been VERY sexist for a long time, be it the east or west. Even in the 50s, even educated girls in college were expected to focus on becoming housewives, and were even encouraged classes about proper lady manners for that reason. But again, part of Shirou's character development is getting over this as he truly comes to understand and respect Saber not just as a girl but as a magnificent yet tragic king, so it really doesn't express the view of the author. Personally, I grew up admiring the way of the knight and chivalry until I realized that there's a lot of sexism involved which was pretty offputting. Even some sayings common today such as "ladies first!" bug me because of that, because like with Shirou, even though they usually mean well, it's still rather sexist. By the way, have you watched the video for Fate/Prototype showing Saber as man as originally envisioned? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP9pQ9J2a8o Be warned that it does have minor spoilers for the actual game though. Also, while Saber was always intended to be Arthur (and it's important since despite the genderswap it is still one of the more faithful takes in vn/anime that explores the tragedy of his kingship, so they couldn't just change the identity due to the gender flip), they did acknowledge that many believed she was Jeanne, and actually created her character and referenced her in Fate/Zero where Gilles de Rais who is insane mistakes Saber for Jeanne and relentlessly pursues her. Here's what Jeanne looks like:

I don't know about that particular problem, and I haven't tried the Fuwa version, but Wanko to Kurasou is one of the VN that I always had trouble getting to run. Even if it worked, the next time it might not.

You look great and that uniform on the baby is awesome! That's an impressive collection of medals! And here I thought you'd look like Konata! I'm really glad to have you here with us! But for a grandfather, you look quite young and dandy! So the mortar fragments and bullets are unremovable?

Welcome welcome! Have you ever read Majikoi? There's a robot named Cookie there! And it transforms into Cookie 2, voiced by Lelouch!! And it transforms into Cookie 3! And it transforms into Cookie 4 in the upcoming fandisk, which is a cute girl and you can enter Cookie's route now!

Welcome! Let's all be friends! ^.^ What kind of VNs do you like?

Since you seem to be really against rape scenes, I should warn you that it's kind of the point of Rance as he's literally just here to have sex with 300 women. No, really, that's one of his gameplay objectives. XD Ironically, since you mentioned historical context, it actually makes sense as in reality rape and pillage was an ancient motivator for conquest and is the cause of much bloodshed, so at least there's no whitewashing and pretending all the conquests and territorial wars were only for honor and noble reasons. However, the thing about Rance though, is that he's terribly immature, so even though they're still rape scenes, it's pretty differen. In fact, Rance has no idea it's supposed to be wrong at all, and is too immature to understand naughty words like "penis" and "cum". Instead it's all about "GAHAHAHAHA! MY HYPER WEAPON IS CHARGING MY IMPERIAL JUICES! TOOOHHHHHH!" He genuinely believes he is making girls happy and it's his duty as a hero, and he's too immature to understand things like love or that it's immoral. It's really over the top and the BMG is a remix of the national theme of East Germany, rather unfitting for sex but upping the intended humor. They're also pretty short and the main purpose seems to be comedy by portraying outrageous scenarios rather than actually causing arousal. Your millage may vary. Really, Rance really shouldn't be taken too seriously. If you want unfortunate implications, you can note that it features a white guy who lands in Japan, takes over for the Nobunaga, and proceeds to conquer and rape Japanese women from every region and destroying and possibly raping famous Japanese heroes! Yet Japanese fans don't seem to be offended. In fact the series is of historical value for being the longest running eroge series of all time, and is the reason why the games are never voiced even when others from the company all are, because it's too much of a classic and fans over the two decades have developed their idea of how the characters should sound. Still, given how you and Ryoji felt about it in fiction, and especially the way a few throwaway sexist lines from Shirou who is otherwise quite the white knight made you upset enough to want to stop, I really think you're probably best off staying FAR, FAR away from any Rance game, where rape is comedy. (Rance getting buttraped is ALSO comedy and a Bad End!) As for Utawarerumono, the gameplay is incredibly simple so don't expect anything FFT tier. Sengoku Rance has much more complexity as a strategy RPG. But the story is pretty fun and I'd rather compare it to something like Fire Emblem or Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You start out in a village, eventually become leader, and then out of self defense start fighting against various powerful nations trying to crush you and gaining many new allies from former enemies.

How did everybody celebrate All Hallows? You know, the actual main event, as Halloween is short for All Hallow's Evening, kinda like the Christmas Eve to the actual day itself. ... *crickets chirp*

If anything, Fate/Stay Night is actually really feminist considering how every female character including those that were actually notorious villains get a sob story explaining that it's all the fault of men. Not to mention that the main heroine is the powerful warrior while the guy is initially useless, and That said, I see different people have different personal preferences. I actually really dislike the dreaded "generic faceless males" in VN that are made solely to be self-inserts, and prefer interesting characters even if they stand against things I believe in, such as in DeathNote. I like moving out of my comfort zone and see the story from different perspectives. You really shouldn't assume Shirou is meant to express the view of the VN's authors. As mentioned in the story and shown in Fate/Zero, the father he worships so much is revealed to be his total opposite in many ways and is the protagonist of that work, who is known for his mercilessness and would gun down innocent children if he believed it was for the greater good (this isn't a spoiler anymore since it's the premise of the anime), and despises heroes like Saber. As an author I wouldn't want to pigeon-holed into writing only from the perspective of personally likable characters. As for rape or being raped, that's a real fetish that's just catering to the audience. Rape roleplay and BDSM are quite real and occur in real life. There are plenty of VN and hentai heavily featuring the protagonist getting raped or dominated as well, such as Monster Girl Quest and Discipline, as there is a sizable portion of otaku that are masochists. Actual rape is obviously horrible in real life, but you shouldn't hold people's sexuality against them if it's just roleplay and scenarios for arousal. This is especially the case of fiction, which lets people experience things that are exciting but wouldn't want to actually happen in real life, be it being violated or being hunted down like a criminal and being forced to go all Rambo on everybody. There are plenty of fetishes that are hard to understand or disgust me but as long as makes people happy and doesn't directly lead to real life harm, it's fine with me and is none of my business. I don't know many cases of furries actually doing anything wrong to their beloved pets There are no rape scenes shown in F/SN though, besides plot significant events like you mentioned. After all, few people are more of a white knight than Shirou... Of course, if you've watched Fate/Zero, then you know of the tragic fate of a certain girl, and should look forward to the last route.

It's literally his main character development in the Fate route to get over this and accept his role is to support saber from behind, not front. I do think Shirou probably has something of a traditionalist hero mindset with some touches of sexism but he actually gets too much of it from the fandom. He does have a few poor remarks but he's the type of person that would go out of his way to save and help everyone he comes across (recall how he bent over and helped Shinji even when the latter mocked him), and it's his instinct to be incredibly protective. His goal in life is to become a hero of justice and live up to what he assumed his father wanted. You shouldn't assume the MC's views are supposed to be "right", there's room for character development. But yes, what you mentioned is hardly unnoticed, and is the reason a derogatory name for it is Fate/Stay in the Kitchen. Note that it sounds like you're in the middle of Fate (which the anime was an adaptation of) route, the first of three routes, so you're hardly half way through the game.

Welcome, let us know if you have any questions about visual novels!

Bonjour! Welcome to the world of visual novels, and welcome to Fuwanovel!

Welcome! It's great of you to discover the magnificent world of VN! ^^

I recommend G-Senjou no Maou, it quite an exciting and interesting story that shouldn't be too intimidating for a newcomer. "You play the role of Azai Kyosuke, the son of a legendary gangster infamous in the underworld. You spend your time listening to Bach, playing God at school and covertly working for your stepfather, a ruthless financial heavyweight. This idyllic existence is broken when two individuals appear in the city - a beautiful girl named Usami Haru, with hair you could get lost in for days, and a powerful international gangster known only as Maou. Almost without delay, the two begin a deadly cat-and-mouse game, bringing you and your friends into the crossfire. Plotting, political intrigue and layer upon layer of interlocking traps are the weapons in this epic battle of wits."

It's very atmospheric, and relies on that rather than jump-scares. It's amazing what they manage to do with 16-bit RPG Maker sprites.

It was originally a PC game to begin with on RPG Maker, and there's a translated version for PC based on the original. There are notable differences, especially since the orginal game only had 5 main characters rather than 9 like the PSP game.

Butter her pooper! By the way, the sequel Book of Shadow has been confirmed for localization next year! I think this time it is in visual novel format.

Well, Kasen claims to be a hermit, but since the beginning I and many other fans have speculated that she is in fact the third Deva of the Mountain, alongside Suika and Yuugi. The way she ran away and hid herself from Suika in the manga further aroused suspicions, to the point it seems like the obvious conclusion. Kasen Ibaraki is seen wearing chains, an oni fashion, and is most likely named after Ibaraki-douji, Shutendouji's adoptive son and apparently in some versions of the mythology, wife. Note that Shutendouji was known as Ibuki-douji, aka Suika, who ruled over the four devas of the mountain, including Hoshiguma-douji (Yuugi). And of course, the title of the manga is The Wild and HORNED Hermit. We'll have to wait for her to strip off those little buns!

Sorry, but yes, you really should read Muv-Luv first. The order goes Extra -> Unlimited -> Alternative Alternative answers questions from the previous parts and builds on its characterization. Some people hate the first part since they came for sci-fi robot fights and got unexpected slice-of-life high school comedy, but since you liked Key works, you hopefully won't find it too boring and will enjoy yourself! By the way, have you ever watched the anime Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, aka Rumbling Hearts?

Fate/Stay Night is a classic that definitely deserves to be checked out. Since you're a big anime fan I'm sure you've heard of the anime and VN fans will tell you the anime is terrible compared to the game, but it's not just that. The plot of the anime is literally only the first book of a trilogy that together make up the VN, so that alone does not fulfill the literary purpose of the author. Yume Miru Kisuri (A Drug That Makes You Dream) was probably the first VN that really drew me into the medium and made me fall in love with it Narcissu is a very short and minimalistic freeware VN that I think you should definitely try. I spent my prom night reading this instead and don't regret it =) G-Senjou no Maou is a very fun VN that I loved a lot last year. Definitely give it a read, especially if you like the mindgame elements of Deathnote or Code Geass. I am currently reading Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai and having a blast. It is a slice of life comedy so no grand overarching save-the-world plot, but it it very hilarious!