sanahtlig

Where is this "Sekai Project is the enemy" talk coming from? Peter said a lot of dumb things in that thread, but he definitely didn't say that. Just because he said staff members were against an uncensored release doesn't mean that's the sole entire reason JAST decided to censor the game. The "enemy" is law enforcement and the laws against obscenity it's enforcing. Staff members were upset because they saw what happened to <well known staff member located in Canada> and, understandably, didn't want it to happen to them too. My guess is that was just a convenient excuse Peter made in the heat of the moment to reflexively shield himself from blame. JAST has a track record with censorship; don't think he was dead-set against censorship until his localization team threatened to mutiny on him. That's just ridiculous. Peter is a nice guy, but don't hang on his every word. He's not Bill Clinton. I'm waiting for Zakamutt to wake up and then maybe I can get my post up on Fuwazette. Maybe it'll turn this conversation in a productive direction.

To fool your enemies you must first fool your allies.

I've spent the last 8 hours writing up a rather extensive post on this issue which I'm hoping to throw up on Fuwazette. Hopefully it'll shed some perspective on the topic.

Good catch. Oddly enough, it doesn't change my translation. My kanji recognition needs work (language pun, haha ). I'm still at the point where I tend to "guess" the readings of kanji based on context. In this case, the translated meanings were similar enough that I didn't catch the mistake.

I wrote a mini-review for the Japanese-language doujin H-RPG Makenshi Leane (the link to the Fuwanovel personal blog post is currently in my signature). I saw that you hosted a similar mini-review of a Japanese language title, so I thought it might fit the scope of this blog.

Take a Japanese language quote (preferably a screenshot from a visual novel or manga) and translate it. Alternatively, post a screenshot of a Japanese quote you want translated. Put your translation in spoilers to give others a chance to think about it for themselves. If possible, include a reference link to the source material (i.e., for a visual novel, a VNDB link). Optional additions include a Japanese text version, romaji conversion, and the source of the original screenshot. I'll start. Celica, Ikusa Megami Verita Source: Eushully's wallpaper section Japanese: 「分からないな。俺ほど自分の心の動きが分からないものもいないだろう。」 Romaji: "...Wakaranai na. Ore hodo jibun no kokoro no ugoki ga wakaranai mono mo inai darou."

I like little sister incest, lolis, NTR, and defeat rape, preferably served with maximum drama. Nope, nothing controversial there.

I find living alone makes it much easier to play VNs.

Pretty much the same here. Although with games like the Venus Blood series I have to bend the rules a bit.

VNDB DLSite (NSFW) Official site I came across this Japanese-language title while scrounging around for gameplay titles with defeat rape. I found the concept of defeat NTR intriguing, so I gave the game a spin. The game's "prologue" spans almost half the game's length (~20hrs total) , and manages to tell a reasonably interesting tale of a broken nation's struggle against a brutal and militaristic empire. It starts off with a cliched love story between a knight commander (the protagonist) and his foster father's daughter, but it's spiced by twists and turns and political intrigue. The protagonist is cliche to the extreme, but it works because fate isn't always on his side, and his naivety often works to his disadvantage. The characters are mostly standard cookie cutter stereotypes. The plot twists are believable despite the shallow setting and characterization, and these are what keep the story interesting. The prologue also serves as a tutorial for the battle system. Once the prologue is over, the map opens up and the player is free to begin conquest, with the eventual goal of toppling the empire. Movement takes place in real time, but combat consists of turn-based one-on-one battles. The combat is fairly simple: the force with a larger army and higher base stats wins. The general can use skills that can affect the course of battle, but simply speaking the side with the most resources to buy soldiers wins (I played on Platinum difficulty). As such, the best strategy is to quickly zerg resources and upgrade your units. For the most part enemies play by the same resource rules, so depriving them of resources early on makes the mid game a bit easier. Clearing the map took me between 10-15 hours. If you play your cards right, the hero prevails and ends up with his favored heroine. Let your heroines fall into the hands of the empire, and after a period of time they'll get NTR'd. There's also mini-events sprinkled about like landmines that can get a heroine or two NTR'd if you take a wrong step. The story and gameplay are simple but entertaining. For a doujin group, the quality is impressive, but the production values don't match up to heavy hitters like Eushully and Alicesoft. This is a basically a niche title for those who are tickled by the defeat NTR gimmick, and that's the audience this game should satisfy. If you subtract out the abundant avoidable NTR content, the ratio of sexual content is actually quite low. The developer Makura Cover Soft is working on a sequel that should be coming out this year, and looks like more of the same but on a bigger scale: more nations, more heroines, and some added systems. I liked how this game took a cliche JRPG plot and mellowed the sickly sweet moe with the threat of bitter NTR, so I'll probably check it out when it's released. Score: 7/10 (Good) Recommended for fans of simple strategy gameplay who are interested in defeat NTR.

What's your source for the number of anime fans in the US? "Google it" doesn't exactly cut it. Edit: This source suggests that Crunchyroll has 11 million unique visitors per month: http://crunchyroll.com.hypestat.com/ That's probably a decent estimate of US anime fans. My experience with the high ratio of VN fans to anime fans probably comes from exposure to anime niches that are enriched for VN fans, including college clubs and JRPG communities. VNs attract a very specific demographic, which can be observed by looking at the Alexa info for VNDB and Mangagamer (Alexa also used to list age ranges in free mode). Curiously, Crunchyroll is female-dominated. I didn't expect that. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/crunchyroll.com

Gather anime fans in a room and you'll always end up with a subset who are into visual novels--though in many cases they won't admit it publicly. The currently tiny market for VNs doesn't reflect so much the narrow appeal of VNs as it does the narrow audience that's willing to pay for them. VN players are pretty common. VN customers, not so much. Just look at the number of registered users on VNDB (84,000) and compare to the volume sales of a popular Mangagamer eroge (1000-2000). Then consider that probably only a fraction of VN fans bother to register an account on VNDB.

Oh, now that I think back on it, I did get the OCR to install properly (I think). But it was utterly worthless as it couldn't even recognize text in the main message window of the game I was playing. If it can't even recognize message window text, there's little hope it'll recognize anything else. That is of course assuming that I actually had it installed and was using it correctly.

I vaguely remember trying to get OCR to work in VNR and failing also. Luckily my Japanese is good enough that it's not usually an issue if I just need to figure out menus, but it would be nice if I could figure out how to get it to work.

This is cool that you're helping people with this. Working on pronunciation and grammar with someone more experienced than me is something I'd be interested in. I've been playing VNs in Japanese for a while now using text hookers.

I'm going to make several statements. Tell me which of these statements are incorrect. 1. 3/4 Major UK ISPs (TalkTalk, Sky and BT) have implemented what is termed "default filtering" for new subscribers. 2. Default filtering is the blocking of certain content on the Internet at the ISP level, primarily pornographic content, by default when Internet service is installed. Users have the choice to opt out of this filtering, but it is installed by default. 3. As of July 2014, Internet filters of this type were installed in 13% of UK households.

You've given me zero reason not to trust the information contained in that article. Did you read it? Did you even click on it? Or did you just assume that you know everything there is to know about Internet filtering in your country? I get the distinct feeling you're telling me to disbelieve something I never stated or believed in the first place.

Really? According to Wikipedia this Internet porn filter is a thing. It's just that most UK households are not affected. Yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom#Current_restrictions

And it's also fundamentally wrong since it sidesteps the legal concept of obscenity and ignores federal statutes that could be used to prosecute a person in any US state. Let me repeat: don't use this infographic as a legal resource. Consider it like you would consider an analysis of climate change research by a political interest group: likely to be incomplete or incorrect.

Um... no? I will agree the Miller Test standards are vague. Prosecutors typically don't prosecute cases they don't think they can win, so all we see are instances of what fails the test (or *might* fail the test), not what passes. Some think that any non-nukige would pass the Miller Test by virtue of artistic value. The problem is that police don't need a court conviction to search your residence and uncover materials which are more likely to be deemed obscene, including Internet doujinshi. Anyone claiming to know the exact boundaries of what is and isn't obscene is ignorant or lying, perhaps both. It's a huge grey area, and will remain so for the forseeable future. Obscenity law was designed from the ground up to be a dynamic legal concept that could morph to meet law enforcement needs in different locations and communities, and adapt with changing times.