Zalor

Hey man, its nice to hear from you. You are one of the few people on the forums that I actually communicated a decent amount with. So I definitely noticed your absence (admittedly I haven't been so active recently either). I really do hope things get better for you in the near future. Good luck, and keep your head up!

Lol, legit every time a thread like this gets made at least 1/4 of the posts are "Learn Japanese". While I would like to say there is an easier way, honestly their isn't. Machine translators are terrible, fan Tls are slow/unreliable, so your best option as a VN fan is to eventually bite the bullet and learn Japanese. I just hope your interest in porn games are strong enough to motivate you to learn an entire language ;P. (Honestly though, learning a language is always a good use of time. Even if it is for porn games.)

Thanks for doing this Bats! I hope my post (like a week ago) partly motivated you to do this. Its always nice to see people's reflections on the past. And you certainly played a fairly important role in this community in the 3 odd years you've been active. Also, Please elaborate on this. I generally find all things concerning Aaeru fairly interesting as she has always been fairly enigmatic to me.

Thats cool to know. I was not really that active during most of the summer, so I missed the temporary shut down of the forums. I find it so appropriate of Aaeru to have once again screwed herself over because of piracy, lol.

Alright, sorry it has been around a week (it's been a pretty busy week for me irl). I'll dedicate this post on my thoughts and memories of Fuwanovel in 2014. Fall/Late Summer of 2013 through 2014: To be honest with you, I feel like the Fall of 2013 meshes in with 2014, so I will start from there. And the reason I think this, is because 2014 was a standstill year, and a lot of that was attributed to Aaeru disappearing. The site was kind of dying during the summer of 2013, and this was also when Aaeru was noticeably less active. A lot of people that used to be really active in the Spring started either disappearing or just posting significantly less. This included me. Looking back on it, I think it was a kind of a burn out. During the spring, a lot of people had fun discussing all sorts of VN related topics. Many people that never really had a chance before to talk about VNs in depth with other people, got really deep and open about this passion. But by the summer, I think a lot of things were discussed to exhaustion, and people were starting to get bored, and consequently leaving. Aaeru finally left in fall of 2013, and Tay took over the site from there on. A lot of the remainder of 2013 from that point onward, seemed to be Fuwanovel picking itself up off the ground. I think at that time Tay was struggling with what purpose Fuwanovel should serve to the VN community. While torrents were still up at that time, and so the site still served as a place to easily get translated VNs; Tay wanted to give the community a purpose beyond that. At that point Fuwanovel was pretty much just a seedbox, and people who wanted to could hang out on the forums. So around late 2013 and early 2014, Tay was coming up with ideas to try to bring the community together in a communal project. I think Tay was weary of people joining the community, being really active for a while, and then ultimately leaving. And I think he thought people usually eventually left, because after discussing VNs for a while, the community lacked any purpose beyond that so they got bored and left. So by coming up with projects, he hoped people would be incentivised to stay. It was actually during this time that I returned briefly from a hiatus, and I think Tay was happy to see me back. He even pmed me welcoming me back. Which honestly really touched me. I just dug through my pm history, and he actually signed the message with his real name. So yeah, that made me very happy. Returning to my point. In the pm he mentioned a VN literary journal he was trying to start with the community. This was an idea that ultimately fell through, but it was an interesting idea. He wanted different people to contribute articles they could write, and to put them together in a journal. Another idea I remember from around that time, was an attempt to make a community VN. Whereas the literary journal did see some progress before falling apart, the community VN never got off the ground. This was mostly because lots of people had passionate VN ideas they came up with, but they were not interested in doing other peoples ideas. So ultimately it just remained as an idea. By the summer of 2014, there was simultaneous frustration about the lack of direction, but also improvement. At this point OriginalRen had started doing podcasts and other various community building projects. (I think he started a bit earlier than the summer, but not by much). Which was very helpful in getting the community involved with each other. It was around this time that Zaka started seriously being involved with the fuwa blog. I don't remember what about, but I remember on one thread regarding the productivity of this site back then, Rooke and Zaka got in a big argument. It was also in the Summer of 2014 where I posted my first serious analytical article about a VN. Something I still try to do when I have the time and motivation for it. In this case it was a close reading of two routes in Key's classic Kanon. Anyway, that was my view of late summer/fall of 2013 through 2014. The site started stagnating, Aaeru left, then Tay tried to bring the community together through community project proposals, ultimately the community finally started to rebuild by summer of 2014. Big thanks go to Zakamutt for taking up the blog, OriginalRen for doing his podcasts/streams and other miscellaneous activities, and Tay for taking over the site and doing his best (and succeeding) in rebuilding it. P.S. Also important to note. Fuwanovel's pre-patched pre-installed torrents remained up on the site for all of 2014. Something that changed in 2015 (when I get to that part).

Thanks guys! This community means a lot to me, and its nice to know that my presence is still recognized and appreciated. When I have time this week, I'll try to expand on my thoughts of 2014 and 2015. In the mean time, thanks! I'm glad my serious content is appreciated! I really do wish I could post more stuff like that, but finding the time is always difficult. But whenever I read a VN that really gets my brain thinking, I always manage to create the time. xD

Man, I've finally reached 1,000 post counts. It only took me 3 years, lol. My activity on this site has always been pretty volatile and spontaneous. Often I would be really active for a couple of months, then disappear for around half a year, and then return like nothing happened. It's for this reason that I don't feel like I know a lot of users very well. Especially newer ones. So I'm mostly going to dedicate this post as a retrospective of both my time here, and how much fuwa has changed. So hopefully even people who don't really recognize me, can at least take interest in some fuwahistory from this dinosaur ;P. The Fuwanovel community has changed significantly since I first joined in March 2013. Back then Fuwanovel was still a fairly new site, and the community was quite small. I really miss those days during the spring of 2013, which was my first round of activity on this forum. Back then, you ran into the same people all the time on the forums. There were few active users, but the ones that were active were fairly involved. A lot of the time it was the same people having conversations about different topics across the forums, and it felt like the community was a lot more unified. Whereas now, it seems to me at least, that users tend to stick to their favorite sub-forum or even thread (I feel like the people active on the fuwanovel confessions thread are their own sub-community, lol). I'm not criticizing this, and in a sense I feel like that is the natural progression of when online-communities get bigger. But back then, people would often post across all the boards; and you would see the same person’s views on different subjects. It allowed a chance to really get to know other users. Which is why even though the forums were fairly slow in activity back then, people remained; because of vibrant discussion and a comfortable small community. Regarding vibrant discussions, that was the reason I loved fuwanovel so much when I first joined. Before Fuwanovel, there wasn't really a good place to discuss VNs casually. The few other places where VN discussion did exist (notably vndb and JP), were fairly elitist and not welcoming to new comers and casual VN readers. Fuwanovel had a completely different vibe, everyone was outwardly friendly. Fuwanovel's goal since its inception was to make "VNs more popular in the west", and having a friendly community that welcomes the less initiated is crucial for such a cause. While admittedly most people that were active back then already had some experience with VNs, the friendly environment promoted discussion without fear of being judged. And I remember Aaeru (the founder of Fuwanovel) made it quite clear that fostering an anti-elitist vibe was a very important goal to her. But combined with being friendly, debate and intellectual exchanges were a huge aspect of many discussions back then. It was quite frequent that different sides would get into huge debates with each other, but would always have respect for the other. They were not flame wars because people were listening to the other side, and respected their views. I remember one of the first acquaintances I made on this site (I believe it was Sieg), was a guy I got into a long argument about G-Senjou no Maou with, and afterwards we became friends. Precisely because it was a small community, people usually posted meaningful replies and would then start a conversation with each other in the thread. If you are ever bored, I highly recommend looking at the really old threads on VN talk, as many of them are quite interesting. Aaeru would also very frequently get in huge debates with people (especially with Sanahtlig). Another aspect I miss about the old Fuwa, was the activity of the old staff, notably Ryoji, Tay and Aaeru. Ryoji has hardly been active since the summer of 2013 but was one of the first users to break 1000 post counts, back when merely having 100 was impressive. I will forever remember him as the Sage of Anime. He had been collecting and following anime since the 80's, and knew a lot about the topic. The only person who was his match was another user name Eldin, and when they conversed with each other we referred to it as "Ryoji vs Eldin". Both of them would talk about the most obscure anime that most people have never heard of, and get into intense debates about said long forgotten shows. It was quite entertaining, and fascinating to watch. Ryoji's wife, Kotomi, was also occasionally active on the site. It was always cool to see when the two of them posted in the same threads. Well, those were my thoughts on Ryoji, onto Tay from 2013. These days I feel like few people actually know Tay. I think for especially newer users he is the guy who runs the site, and is often too busy. But back in 2013 (and 2014 as well), Tay was really active. He would participate in many conversations, and he was a strong reason why many people felt that the community was so nice. He recognized users and got to know them. I remember after my first long absence from the forums when I returned, he sent me a pm greeting me back. That gesture deeply touched me, as already then, I felt like a lot of users that I once knew had left. This was back in late 2013, at that point Aaeru disappeared, and Ryoji was also no longer active, not to mention a lot of other formerly active people left. I didn't really know the new community (lol, this was back when Nosebleed was actually new) and I didn’t feel at home. But then with that one Pm from Tay, I knew that I wasn't forgotten. Tay really knew the community back then, and it was obvious he cared a lot about its users. This is still true about him, but now I feel he is too busy to be as engaged as he used to be, which I completely understand. I just want people to know that Tay really does care a lot about this community, and I am glad he runs this site. The last staff member I remember being active from 2013 was Aaeru. Unlike with both Ryoji and Tay, I never really interacted with Aaeru that much. She posted on my Introduction thread, and that’s about all I remember interacting with her. But what I do remember was her crusade against licensing and her vehement pro-piracy views. She believed two things very strongly about Priracy. 1) Was that Piracy was the most efficient means to spread word about VNs, and 2) That fan translators could do a faster job than official licensors and translators. To be honest with you, I agree with both these views still. I respect licensors, but Fan translators can translate any VN they want (they don’t need a license to do so), and I’ve noticed that they have usually been faster. Furthermore, of English translated VNs, I feel like more good ones have either been fan translated, or picked up from fan translators. They are still the backbone of the Western VN community in my view. Furthermore about Aaeru, it was her “Learn How to Read Japanese in 2 Years” thread that first motivated me to learn Japanese. I always assumed that it was an impossible task before that. But her thread convinced me that I could learn the language, and that motivated me to study. If it were not for that blog post, I probably would not know any Japanese right now. So I really must thank her for that. Even though Aaeru has long disappeared, I hope people don’t forget about her. While a lot of drama and controversy was started by her, we wouldn’t have Fuwanovel at all if it were not for her, and so we should pay our respects to her for at least that reason. The spring and the summer of 2013 were the golden age of the site for me. I’m glad that Fuwanovel has grown (and is continuing to grow). It makes me happy because it serves as evidence that Fuwanovel is succeeding in its mission statement to “Make Visual Novels popular in the west”. I have had plenty of great interactions with people during 2014 and 2015 (I have not been very active during 2016 thus far though). I’m constantly adapting to the community’s evolution and support where the site is going. But I don’t want the early days of Fuwanovel, the days that really first shaped the site, to be forgotten. I hope you guys didn’t mind my huge nostagiafest. In the title I mentioned that this was a "3 year retrospective". So if you are curious about my thoughts on 2014 and 2015 I would gladly share them. Every year of this site has been distinctly different, so I definitely have a lot to share. And if others have perspectives of old Fuwa to share, I would love to hear them.

Nothing will compare to my High school Chinese classes in terms of difficulty. How intense was it? Within the first month she made each student sign a contract telling us that she would no longer use any English in the class, and that any English she heard us speaking would result in a 1 point deduction from our overall grade. Meaning after the first month, the class became 100% immersive. She explained all new grammar, vocab, etc in Chinese. She would tell us when assignments were due, quickly in Chinese. On top of that, a typical homework assignment was writing a page length of stuff in Chinese each day. This bitch was crazy. Hell, I think this class was probably harder than most College level Chinese classes. Needless to say, my Japanese classes are very reasonable compared to my one other language learning experience.

The only way to understand Serial Experiments Lain is to watch it all the way through once, and then rewatch it. The first time you watch it you will only probably understand the bare minimum, but should be able to find enjoyment in how trippy of an experience it is. Then everytime you rewatch it, you will be able to understand more and more by building on previous knowledge. I would say it takes a minimum of 2 viewings to understand Lain, and even then it will take multiple viewings to really understand it.

Lol, I remember you made almost the exact same thread like a year or 2 ago, and I still recommend the same thing I did last time. Monster, by Naoki Urasawa. I think you would also like Kaiji, but just be warned that it takes a few episodes to get used to the art style.

I randomly found this series on Youtube and I thought some of you might enjoy this. So basically the creator of this series inserted Eroge characters into the Super Robot Wars series. In other words, you get to see Eroge characters fight each other in giant mechs. What more could you want in from this world? Here is part 1: Super Eroge War 1 If you look on the guy's channel I believe there are up to 6 parts. By the way, fans of Dies Irae will probably like this also: Dies Irae and mechs

I'm pretty sure that the only reason to learn 古文 these days are if you plan to read older Japanese literature in the original. Unless you are either really anal about translations (to the extent that you don't even trust modern japanese translations of older japanese) or if you are getting a graduate degree in Japanese literature, then I see no real reason to learn 古 文. So I am curious what your incentives are.

If I recall correctly, The Walking Dead was a popular comic and then a hit TV show before it became a game (I didn't even know there was a game of it). Meaning it already had tons of publicity first. So it is not really a good example. As for Life is Strange, I don't know much about it. But apparently it was published by Square Enix, a well established company that people know and that has the money to advertise its products. So neither seem like good examples as counter points to my original argument.

Fuck Steam! I once had to download it for a game I was interested in, and it it has been more of an inconvenience than anything else. However, I'm not much of a gamer, so that is one reason I hold this perspective. But in the larger discussion, Steam is not the future for VNs! There is one simple reason why, gamers want to game, not read! This is especially so in the west. If VNs were ever to gain any serious traction in the west, it most likely be among readers, not gamers. Of course that would require marketing VNs in a very different way, but that is the only way I see them ever breaking beyond a niche audience.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. It is certainly true that VNs will only become more popular if people stop making them for the niche audience that is already into them. The Japanese market has already dug itself into a hole and is stained with a reputation that is off putting to non-otaku (i.e. it is strongly associated with moe and hentai subculture). In my view, the Japanese industry is a lost cause. What pisses me off though, is how OELVN authors copy the shitty tropes that Japanese VNs do, thinking that is what VN players want! Its fucking stupid. The English VN market doesn't have the same constrictions that the Japanese one does, so there is no need to limit yourself to the tropes in Japanese ones (like always being in a fucking high school!!!!). The OELVN market has far more potential for creative expression, but few are taking advantage of that potential. Maybe when I'm out of college I'll take that ambitious step forward, but for now I can only commentate on the issue as opposed to actually contributing (by making my own VN).

There are original Chinese manga. I ran into them in a heavily Chinese populated area in New York (but not China town). So they exist.

I've been a member since early 2013 and I've yet to reach 1000 posts (although I'm finally pretty close). Damn, I still remember back in the day when Invertmouse and Ryoji reached a 1000 posts, back when it was still an uncommon accomplishment. They were the top Fuwa posters in 2013, and now their post counts are comparatively average, lol. Also, I feel old and forgotten. Doesn't help that I've barely been active the past 6 months or so.

Getsuya is a really cool dude. But I haven't seen him on the site since summer. I don't think he's active anymore. Hopefully im wrong though, I really liked him.

That's what They want you to think!

That's unfortunate, as Yume Miru Kusuri is one of my favorites as well. Although, what I have come to discover in the anime/manga/VN world, is that people involved in creating such works are rarely consistent in their quality. Particularly in VNs it is tough, as Nukige sell so well, that writing it is the best way to put rice on the table. My understanding (from what Clephas has said before), is that writers and companies usually create several Nukige for every non-nukige they produce, as a way to hedge their bets. Hell apparently some fairly influential people worked on the likes of Boku no Pico. I think the person who did the music for Evangelion (or End of Eva) did the music for Boku no Pico. Even companies that are consistent (like KEY), bore me because they basically just rewrite the same story over and over again. So yeah, generally I don't use company name or author involvement as a way to predict if I will like a VN. Although there are exceptions. For instance the only reason I like LittleWitch is for their artwork, and they were pretty consistent in that area (but I think they don't exist anymore).

This topic is meant to be both a question to Silent Hill 2 fans, and as a recommendation to Utsuge fans. I'll be honest, I haven't actually played Silent Hill 2, I just have a close friend who is obsessed with it and spoke to me in lots of detail about it. From clips of the game he's shown me, and conversations I've had with him, It seems like a game that would appeal to people who are big into VNs (particularly Utsuge fans). For the longest time I dismissed the game as just being a typical horror game, but then I realized that the game is more depressing than scary. Furthermore, it entrenches you in a simultaneously creepy and depressing atmosphere. The game seems to be largely about the atmosphere and its characters. So my question to Silent Hill 2 fans. If Silent Hill 2 were adapted as a VN, would much be lost without the game play. How important do you think the game play is to the game? Because I felt like I got a lot out of it just by watching a compilation of the cut scenes without having played it.

That really blows. I mean, who wouldn't be depressed and whinny if their whole perception of the world and people changed to like something from Dante's Inferno. I feel like the whining is justified. On top of that, I don't even remember him being that whinny, more like irritable. Eh, it always gets under my skin when people completely over look the VN medium (-.-). The struggle is real Deep Blue ;p

Lol, I actually thought you've been with us longer than that. I used the same avatar for basically 2 years and 9 months, so we will see how long it takes you until you change/update ;P I found it when I googled for some images of Eltshan from FE 4, but as far as I can tell they only redid his mug (lucky me!). The image was part of this Fire Emblem 4 Tumblr blog. There are other gems in there.

Kanon Day, fashionably late this year! Perhaps I will find some point later on in the month to read some Kanon, but this year I don't have time to sufficiently drench myself in the nostalgiafest. Anyway, here is some fan art my sister graciously made for me upon request:

I love how Clephas has just given up on recommending titles that are translated. Well, if you don't mind untranslated suggestions, I recently wrote a whole blog post about how strong the atmosphere in Sayonara wo Oshiete is. So I would definitely recommend that. For translated titles I am in agreement with Deep Blue, Swan Song is fantastic.