Conjueror

It depends on what kind of switch you are talking about, but スイッチを動かす is probably the most neutral way of saying it.

Um... guys? We use money in Japan, too, you know. T_T

Yeah, those are pretty rare, I imagine a story with a protagonist like that might have to concentrate solely on somewhat shallow romantic pursuits (since your protag would be proactive at pursuing multiple heroines) and most of the writers usually like to add more complexity ot the VNs that aren't nukige. That said, there are proactive romance-seeking protagonists (to an extent) in VNs which have one MC per one heroine. Kyosuke from ef, Chitose from Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa ha nai and Tanomura from Swan Song come to mind. The only others I can think of are from Kanno Hiroyuki's YU-NO and Eve -burst error-, but these guys are looking for an erotic adventure rather than a serious relationship, and it's not the center of the story.

Well, translating literary works is a slippery slope, and there is a reason why novels are usually done by university professors, and even have multiple translations. Translating things "literally" usually puts you at the situation where not only your writing is nigh unreadable, but you are not getting the author's point across either (same words don't mean same things in different languages, if they did, we didn't need translators at all, we'd just need translation software). So, translating literary works, in the end, comes down to translating nuance; the best of the best breakdown every single line of the novel, analyzing the intention with which it was written (setting the atmosphere, describing a fact, lightening the mood) and transcribe it in other language so it has the exact same effect and conveys most of the same information, usually, using completely different words. Remember, you are not only tling words, you are tling culture. This, obviously, leaves readers at the mercy of the translator's interpretation abilities, somewhat, but very few professionals actually misinterpret the stuff that much. And I'd rather have a fine tl that gets most of the point across, rather than a garbled mess which neither makes sense, nor coincides with the writer's intent. xD Here's an example of the best VN translation ever done by a man (this guy translates Haruki Murakami novels too, real pro work here). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4FE03279FA2A0C42

Oh, lol, yeah, that was quite a surreal experience. Basically, Masada tends to use very complicated words and expressions, most of which are impossible to translate literally (unless you are alright with making no sense whatsoever), so you have to know how to transform Japanese writing into English writing that has the same effect without using the same words most of the time. Japanese is not the biggest problem, you basically have to be on-par with professional novelists to reproduce the writing of the vn. xD EDIT: Oh yeah, and it also has stuff like this: 其泣状者青山如枯山泣枯河海者悉泣乾 是以惡神之音如狭蝿皆滿 that even most native Japanese can't read. Those are quotes from ancient Japanese mythology writings, something like our Bible I suppose, and are, obviously, written in ancient Japanese. I actually had to contact my friend with a PhD in ancient Japanese literature to make sense out of that line. Still, you can find modern Japanese translations of this writing (Kojiki) online, so you can do a secondary tl to English, so it's still not untranslatable, even if you can't read ancient Japanese.

Hello, guys. I tried testing my skills by translating an excerpt from one of the more complex VNs around, and thought that some of you might be interested. I'm fairly confident in my Japanese, but trying to reproduce Masada's writing in English nearly gave me a heart attack; hopefully, my lousy prose won't give one to you, haha. I edited it myself too, so don't be too angry if I messed up grammar or used a weird word here and there (I lived in Japan for so long, I don't remember how ppl speak overseas anymore xD). The scene has spoilers, obviously, but if you aren't reading the game now, or mean to do it fairly soon, they are so cryptic you'll probably won't understand what the hell Masada (or me) is even blabbering about. Text-based TL on my blog: https://vnrw.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/translation-dies-irae-beatrice-vs-eleonore-part-i/ Subbed YT videos:

Ehm... Maybe try doing Clannad and Grisaia on the side too? xD Muramasa is so long and complicated even JAST has a hard time translating it (at least they are taking forever to do it), but I'm sure your google translate will easily surpass all of their efforts.

Well, it was a really weak year imo. I'm personally only interested in 相州戦神館學園 八命陣, and Rance/Ikusa Megami remake to an extent, but 月に寄りそう乙女の作法2 and あの晴れわたる空より高く don't seem too terrible compared to the what else we got this year. ChuSingura46＋1 and 虚ノ少女　topped the list last year, so erogamescape might not be THAT hopeless, haha. P.S. Jesus Christ, I thought I was pretty hardcore, but looking at your vndb it seems you've read almost twice as much stuff as I did. xD

Hey guys, I compiled a list of most favorably rated 2014 VN (not nukige) releases in Japan (according to erogamescape). Might be interesting for those who aren't used to surfing that site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_159rAKrn0g

Um... WTF. Something's not right here. EDIT: Oh, okay. It seems this music is actually in public domain or smth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cffc_s0eN5Q http://youtu.be/m5vEXnWQOH0?t=10m14s

Not when they are into it too, the doll in the last picture belongs to my ex-. xD The room works as a good test to gauge the prospects of one's future relationship.

Hello. I am a semi-professional freelance translator with about three years of experience in handling non-literary stuff like tourism pamphlets and documentary subtitling. Lately I was thinking of making a shift toward literary translating and thus would like to practice on things I actually enjoy reading. Note that due to the nature of my professional experience I have more confidence in my reading comprehension than producing good flowing prose. I also have never attempted translating anything erotic so far, so I don't know if I can do it competently. -_-; 1) Handle: Conjueror 2) Positions you can fill: Translator (JP>E) 3) Types of projects (VNs) preferred: Only the select VNs mentioned in (5). 4) Availability: Busy working for MangaGamer. 5) VNs interested in producing a ftl for (in order of preference): Himawari (I'm particularly interested in bringing this hard sci-fi gem to western audiences as it is my second favorite visual novel after Subarashiki Hibi), Aiyoku no Eustia, Ikusa Megami Zero, Genrin no Kishougun 2, Haru Made, Kururu, Bullet Butlers and Chrono Belt. I'd add Dies Irae too, but I'm too afraid to tackle THAT for my first literary translation. I might also be persuaded to translate BALDR FORCE, Sekai de Ichiban Dame na Koi, Oretachi ni Tsubasa ha nai, Haruka ni Aogi Uruwashi no and Hatsuyuki Sakura. 6) Motivation for joining in on ftl: Spreading VN love to the world, practice for my job. 7) Conditions*: None that I can think of at the moment. I noticed there was an attempt to revive Aiyoku no Eustia translation project a few months ago, but it failed due to the group lacking an experienced translator. I wish I was around then. Hopefully the interest hasn't waned yet as it's definitely among the best visual novels I've read. And I've read a lot.

My room decorations are still unfinished, but I think it's looking a bit otaku already.

One of my favorite visual novel writers, Go from Blank Note, once said that a visual novel is 25% visuals, 25% writing and 50% music. While I believe that was a bit of an exaggeration, I definitely find music very important for this kind of media. So important in fact, I made a TOP 100 list of my favorite visual novel music on youtube. You can check it out, if you are interested (a couple of tracks overlap with the ones already suggested in this thread though ). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLujdRg2UAm50inr6heuoCBzI_p776YYV0