Zalor

Lol, I forgot that 攻略 was the word for walkthrough. Before I started this thread, I googled walkthrough in katakana, but it didn't get me any where. Anyway, thanks

Thanks!

So Foolmaker.net is down, which means that the one website I could rely on for walkthroughs of Untranslated VNs is down. If anyone knows another site I could use that would be great. Specifically, I am currently reading Midori no Umi, and would like a walkthrough for that.

It always shocks me how many people find the idea of living in a foreign country as an adverse idea. I suppose it takes a feeling of disgust and rejection from your own culture to really want to escape it for another. Its in conversations like this one, which always remind me that the expat life style found me, not the other way around. Although I'm not an expat yet, still working towards that dream.

Yes, in a heart beat. Having just spent 2 months working as an intern with an NPO in Japan, I just returned home two days ago (and am still very very Jet lagged). I have been working towards the goal of moving there for around a year now. The sole reason I even attend the college I am currently enrolled in is because through it, I can participate in a duel degree program with a 1st rate Japanese Uni, but have the majority of the costs covered by my domestic school. Honestly, I hardly experienced much culture shock at all in Japan, but my reverse culture shock has been much worse. I really can't wait to return to Japan. So why did I love it, and why do I have my heart set on moving there? For one, the people are really nice. People seem to have this perception that Japanese people are xenophobic, and in general I think this is false. Of course there are some racists in Japan, but racists exist everywhere. And I would say that they are actually pretty rare in Japan. That said, if you are a foreigner people will make some assumptions about you. They will probably assume that you don't know Japanese, that you aren't accustomed to Japanese culture, that you are just visiting, etc. But I wouldn't call this xenophobic, as these assumptions are generally true. And if these assumptions don't apply to you, it is because you are the exception, not the rule. Also, its really easy to make friends if you are actively learning Japanese, or know the language. I still have a lot to learn regarding Japanese, but because I primarily always communicated with people there in Japanese, I had no problem making friends. Regardless of the fact that my ability to communicate was limited. Actually, I had a much easier time making friends in Japan than I do in my native country, which is another strong motivation for me to move there. This gets on to my observations about the culture. I spent most of my time in the Japanese countryside, but I did spend some time in Tokyo. So I will comment on both. I will start by comparing the countryside in Japan, with the countryside in America (my home country). The American countryside, in general, is shit in my opinion. It is the breeding ground for extremism on two equally unappealing sides. 1, are religious fanatics. Christianity is impossible to avoid in the American countryside, and they take it super seriously. The 2nd extreme group you will run across in the American countryside are drug addicts, alcoholics, similarly unhealthy/dangerous people. In my view, there is no culture in the American countryside, aside from religion and blind patriotism that is. The Japanese countryside by contrast, is mostly focused on community and tradition. Things are fairly secular, and ritualistic events only happen on special occasions. From my view, religion in Japan is much more about persevering the traditional culture, than it is about the mystic elements of religion. So if you are an Atheist /Agnostic like me, this is great. Furthermore, extreme alcoholism and drug abuse is practically non-existent. I said before that things are highly focused on the community, so community events are somewhat common. I got a sense that people genuinely cared about each other in the Japanese countryside, and that the village community was like one big family. This is to the extent where people feel comfortable enough where they don't lock their doors, and they don't knock. Rather when entering a neighbor's house, they will open the door, shout "Sorry to be a disturbance!", and enter (but they will stay in the part where shoes are kept, until they are indicated otherwise). Anyway, my summarized thoughts on the Japanese countryside: warm, secular, safe. Now onto City life. Or more specifically, a comparison with New York City (where I live), and Tokyo. I think Tokyo is a much more fun city, with a much larger variety of things to do, for a much more affordable price. NYC is hella expensive, and if you want to do something with friends, you are most likely going to be spending a pretty buck. Furthermore, NYC has much fewer options. In Tokyo, Game Center (aka Arcades) are fairly common, Karaoke is practically ubiquitous, there exist many cafes with various themes (such as Maid cafes, Butler cafes, cat cafes, Jazz cafes, etc), not to mention gambling places such as Pachinko and Mahjong parlors, both of which are really popular. Entertainment wise, the only things that New York beats Tokyo at is in performing arts (Broadway!) and variety in restaurants. Tokyo also has a large variety of restaurants, but still hands down New York wins. NYC has many many immigrants from all over the world, so you can eat well made dishes that originate from practically all over the world. So in terms of Globalization and the benefits that come with it, NYC wins. But overall the benefits that NYC has going for it are usually accompanied with a relatively high price, and while good quality cheap alternatives do exist, you have to really search out for them or know a friend. One last benefit that pertains equally to the countryside and city life, they are not strict on underage drinking. The legal age to drink is 20 there, but if you are a foreigner, they practically never check for an ID. And if you are Japanese, they don't typically card people in groups (so long as most people in the group look like they are older than high school students). Izakaya's are really fun, and a great place to have fun with friends. So I hope this makes it clear why I want to move to Japan (I am also considering Taiwan, but that would require me to learn Chinese).

Why does it matter if they support Win 7 or not? I can still hook up the to the internet and read VNs on my laptop regardless of whether windows supports it or not.

Yeah, its Eltshan from FE4. How did you know the specific name of the character if you never played FE4? Either way, while the game has a lot of different conventions that are not standard to most FE games, I highly recommend it. And I think it holds a solid place as one of the best Fire Emblem games every created.

Seriously though, this. Lol.

Another Fire Emblem fan, great! Its nice to have you with us! Also, nice Roy avatar, have you played FE6? It's one of my favorites. Also, do you recognize which FE my avatar is from?

Words from a wise friend of mine (who is also a weeb): "Actually, Hitler had all the right ideas, just the wrong demographic. He should have exterminated weeaboos"

Off of this (and the fact that it seems we have very similar taste), I could highly recommend Kino's Journey. It's thought provoking, has Dystopianish settings, and social commentary. Its about this traveler who visits different cities, and has a rule not to stay in any one place longer than three days. Needless to say, each place that Kino visits is unique and interesting because each city showcases a philosophical theme in their respective cultures.

I agree with this, and I think this goes without saying. I'm just making the argument that it can be done, and I think that if somebody were ambitious enough to learn Japanese well enough to write well in it, I think it could be profitable for them. (Actually, a part of me is interested in possibly doing this myself one day. Obviously I still have a while to go though. But who knows, maybe one day ;p)

While this is true, I see it as a risk/reward thing. Even if the Japanese market is over-saturated, it is still none the less larger. Meaning that if you were to create an original work that were to succeed, it would be very profitable. Furthermore, as a foreigner you could offer different perspectives on things, which is very helpful for sticking out from the crowd. For instance, take this German Mangaka who publishes Japanese manga: video interview. Honestly, her work does not seem that interesting to me. But simply for offering a foreign perspective on things, it is doing commercially well. I think a similar thing could happen for the Japanese eroge market. Furthermore, rather recently I was speaking to a friend I made here in Japan about anime, Vns, etc. Although he only casually plays VNs, he told me he downloaded Katawa Shoujo. Katawa Shoujo has gained some traction in Japan for being a western VN. I think Japanese are curious what westerns have to offer when they express themselves in Japanese mediums like VNs and manga. Its a fresh perspective for them. It wouldn't be easy, but masterpieces have been written by authors writing in a foreign language. Joseph Conrad, one of the greatest writers in the English language was Polish. Furthermore, I believe Nabokov translated Lolita from Russian to English himself. So writing well in a foreign language can be done if you are dedicated enough to it.

Something I do sometimes wonder is why don't Western developers who know Japanese make games for the Japanese market, since the Japanese market is so much larger than the english one. I know that Japanese capable people from countries like Taiwan, China, etc go to Japanese cons to try to sell their work. I know this is a different question from your original one, but I think it is related. The reasons I can come up with is that the English speaking market is big enough where it isn't a necessity to market to Japanese. And the 2nd factor, I don't think any western devs know Japanese.

Niigata is deep snow country. In the winters they almost daily (or weekly) have to shovel the snow off their roofs so the weight doesn't make the roof collapse. But pictures speak louder than words: I'm sure it snows less in Niigata city than it does in the country side though. Too bad. Btw, I noticed your location is Taiwan. Before going to Japan I spent a month there, absolutely loved it. I want to go back someday. I also want to learn Chinese now because of it.

I'll be In Tokyo from the 28th to 31st, will you still be chilling in Tokyo when I will be there? I'm doing an internship else where in Japan currently (Niigata), so that is the earliest I can come to Tokyo, since my internship ends the 27th of this month. On topic though. If your not interested in the cultural stuff, I can't help you out much. Since coming to Japan, I've spent basically all my time in a small town in Niigata since that is where my internship is located. Niigata is great for skiing, its rice, and some other traditional stuff and that's around it. So basically its most marketable aspects are its traditional aspects, and its winters; both things you stated you were not interested in. ;p Edit: Although Niigata does have this really cool place that this video elaborates on: Japanese Sake Vending Machines

Glad you found it interesting No, to this day nobody knows what has happened to her. I've contacted a few people about it, including Tay, and none of them know. As far as the internet is concerned, the username Aaeru is dead. My speculation is that all the drama she was causing and drawing to herself was too much for her, and she just wanted to escape from it all. So as a result she just abandoned the entire VN community. There are 4 possibilities that I see happened to her. 1) She abandoned the user name Aaeru, and is still involved in the VN community, but under a completely different username with no connections to her old one. In other words she made a clean slate for herself. Honestly though, I think this is fairly unlikely. Since there is no way she would be able to keep silent over all the bullshit that is going on in the VN community these days. 2) She completely abandoned VN and has moved on from the medium. This along with number 3 are the two options that I find most likely. 3) She still reads VNs, but doesn't pay any attention to the community anymore. 4) She legit died. This is by far the least likely option, but still entirely possible.

I've stalled from finishing School Rumble for around 5 years now. The most fucked up part is that a couple of years ago I rewatched it, but stopped at the same part I did the first time. School Rumble is a special case for me because it is one of the few comedy anime that actually gets me to literally lol. So because I really really like it, I never wanted to finish it, since I knew that would make me really sad. I have like 3 episodes of the 2nd season to go before I finish it. I'm sure I will rewatch it again, but I'm not sure if I will ever finish it. The same exact reason is why after a whole year I still have 2 episodes of GTO left. I found the show legitimately funny and don't want to finish it. I only seem to have this problem with comedies btw.

Coincidentally enough, I've been thinking about Tae Kim's guide a lot recently, as well as self-studying Japanese in general. Since its summer and classes are over, that means I have to self-study until classes start up again in the fall. Personally I used Tae Kim for my first 4 months or so of studying Japanese, and then I had the privilege of taking actual classes at my University, where we used Genki, and now I am back to using Tae Kim (until the semester starts, when I will be using Genki 2). I read through Tae Kim's basic, essential, and special expressions sections each around 3 times when I first started learning. I feel that tackling up to 2 - 3 lessons a day is a good amount, and then reviewing those respective lessons after was a good day of learning and practice. And then once I finished the whole section, I would reread it again. Work through it slowly again, and once I finished, would go through that process one last time before finally moving on to the next section. With the lack of practice material, I felt this helped drill in the key concepts to me. Once I finished through special expressions, I finally started reading VNs with the help of dictionaries and consulting grammatical reference when I needed it. I read 2 moeges (that I hated) in this way. By the time I finished the second moege, University started, and I quit studying this way (with VNs) and simply studied for my class instead. Contrary to what many people in the VN community advocate (and I think often exaggerate), I don't think you can learn Japanese simply by learning grammar, and then reading with dictionaries. I suppose if you do this method long enough, eventually a decent amount of vocabulary and grammatical comprehension ability will get stuck to in your head. But even then, all this will accomplish is an ability to roughly comprehend the written language. And I emphasize the word roughly. Without formal training, you will mostly be interpreting Japanese rather than actually really understanding it. Just because you understand how to comprehend grammar, does not mean you understand how to use it properly. I remember running across this problem when I started classes, since I knew grammar that was above my level, but only on a comprehensive scale. When I tried using it, I usually used it wrong. That said, I think that reading VNs, manga, etc, is really good practice for formal study. It will help you hone in concepts that you learned, and see how you can use them in ways out side of your textbook's rigid usage. Or rather, your text book's rigid usage, is a good starting point, and reading native material is the next step to further those concepts. It may sound from my post that I don't believe that Japanese can be learned without the supplementation of classes, and this is not true. I think any language can be learned with both self study and with sufficient exposure from the actual language (and part of expose in my view, includes interacting with people irl in that language). But I think taking the latter route (solely self-study) is a lot harder than it is often given credit. Often in the VN community, especially on Fuwa, I will occasionally see these dumb posts that go along the line of "oh, I just read VNs with a dictionary, studied grammar, and I learned Japanese." This line of thinking, which I mostly associate with Aaeru's learn japanese guide, gives the terrible advice of studying grammar, and then moving on to reading VNs with dictionaries. The dangerous part of this, is the "and then" part. You should not stop studying (or under prioritize) hardcore study of grammar once you move on to native material! Rather, you should continue studying as your primary focus, and reading VNs in Japanese as "practice" to reinforce what you learned. But you don't learn from reading VNs, it is just a means to reinforce material that you learn from either a textbook or a teacher. The moment somebody says something that suggests that they use VNs to learn, rather than as practice aided with serious study, I dismiss them as being full of shit. With all that said. I think that serious practice material for Tae kim would be really really helpful. Currently Tae Kim's grammar is a great grammatical reference, and also great review, but not so great of a textbook in my view. And a big problem is that I don't think that it has good practice material aiding it. Rather, you can only really passively learn from Tae Kim, without being able to really actively practice what you learned (through writing, speaking, and listening). That said, I think practice problems should be made by somebody who fulfills these 2 requirements. 1) They know Tae Kim's guide well 2) Their Japanese is strong, at the very least N2 level, preferably N1. In any case, great post. I think you brought up an important issue.

90% a joke, hence why its in Colosseum of Chatter. But a small part of me was interested if it was used or not. I never paid much attention to it, but I remember when the board was newly implemented, and I had never seen any activity on it. But if threads there get deleted, then that makes sense.

Thanks, that clarifies everything.

I think Tay uses that board to remind people that he still exists.

So what is the purpose of this board?

It's been great talking to you as well. I'm going to respond to you via PM, as there is a lot of non-Kanon related stuff I want to talk to you about.

Unintentional click-bait ftw When I was in Taiwan a few weeks ago, I found a Kanon doujin from the year 2000 or 2001. All the other doujins that were explicit had a warning that they were, but this one had a nice innocent looking title picture of the Kanon girls, and no such warning. Well I was deceived. Long story short, can confirm that it exists