Zalor

If you could, I would find it interesting. I have always wondered what went on inside the hidden staff forums.

Glad to know. Does that still give me the power to wreak havoc on the Fuwa forums on the world?

How the hell do you even do that? Do you read both VNs simultaneously on two different screens?

It's me guys. It's as shocking to me as it is for you. But here is the proof: And more recently this: All I have to say for myself, is that if I am the prince of Darkness. Hell has a lot of eroge, so join the Dark Side.

I remember a long time ago Tay proposed a very similar idea: Fuwanovel Lit Journal Vol I. For various reasons it failed, but I think such a thing could succeed now (although I place a huge emphasize on that 'could'). I think the reasons it failed before was: 1) poor coordination: People signed up and volunteered to write but didn't ever submit anything (I'm ashamed to admit I am one of those people. Infact, this post here, was an apology gift to Tay for my failure in the Lit Journal project. He has since forgiven me). 2) Simply not enough active members: Fuwa in 2013 was a lot smaller than Fuwa is now. So not only did this severely limit the amount of people who could submit something, but the target audience was also very small. 3) Stuff relating to 1 & 2: There were a lot of smaller issues that related to problems 1 and 2 The reasons I think such a project could conceivably succeed now are for these reasons: 1) A decent sized community: There are way more active members now. Thus this completely solves the previous problem of not having enough people to participate (either as contributors or as an readers). 2) A wealth of topics and blogs that already exist: I feel that many great Blog posts go unrecognized. This would provide the perfect opportunity for those posts to receive more recognition. And furthermore, this means that you already have content to publish (you don't need to rely on 100% new content). 3) Better coordination: I feel Fuwanovel is way more coordinated than it was before. Thus making this an easier task to accomplish. Honestly a part of me is still a bit skeptical, as this is going to require a lot of hard work. Nonetheless, despite my skepticism, I do have hope and a strong desire to this project succeed.

Wait... So does that mean Batman is banned now? I'll miss his presence and sarcasm. On a serious note. I feel Steve's resignation was an important event. With his resignation, the last loyal knight serving the old regime left; allowing Fuwa to move in a direction completely unhindered by previous ideologies. It was also a sad day for all Loli lovers on Fuwa.

I'm with Sanahtlig on this one. Archiving and preserving Fuwa's history seems important to me. Some people may heavily disagree with Aaeru and view her leadership as a low point in this site's history, but we wouldn't be where we are now without her contributions. In many ways Aaeru did revolutionize the western VN community. She separated herself from other communities (notably TLwiki I believe) and started something new, and this site is a result of that something new. Understanding Fuwa's history is important in understanding how the broader western VN community has changed over time; at least in my view. You honestly don't seem to know Sanahtlig very well if you're saying that. While Sanah does like promoting his content, he puts out content worth reading. Furthermore, he's been involved with the VN community for over a decade, making him plenty qualified to talk about the history of the western eroge industry as a whole, or just specifically about this site. He's one of the few people in this community who has been around for a long time, knows what he is talking about, and genuinely treats his passion seriously. If the cost for having such a valuable member is simply him self-promoting his work; than it's worth tolerating his justified desire for attention.

Glad we've been of use to you in your real life as well.

I might actually read it then!

I didn't mean, nor did I say that Tay leads the entire Visual Novel community. Rather what I meant was that Fuwanovel (at least in my humble view) is one of the better VN communities out there, because it is quite active and friendly. Making it a great site to get more people into VNs. Fuwanovel is helping expand the entire VN community, but I am not saying that it is the entire VN community (I don't know how you came to the conclusion that I was saying that). Also, I said that I respect both Aaeru and Tay for different reasons. I wasn't saying one was better than the other. Infact, I was saying that Fuwanovel couldn't have survived without either of them. Fuwanovel wouldn't have been here to begin with, without Aaeru. But it probably would have died without Tay.

What you said in the second thread you linked, this quote: Is the key reason that I think Tay is much better as the leader of this community. I think I've said this before, but while Aaeru is one of the few people who could create a site like this, Tay is one of the few people who can actually run and lead it. Aaeru did a good job for creating this site which resulted in this community, but Aaeru's anti-copyright dogma was limiting how much this community could grow. Whereas Tay understands that the most important function of Fuwanovel is fostering and expanding the VN community, even if it meant getting rid of torrents. Both Tay and Aaeru have my deepest respect, but for different reasons.

Did the conversation we have about the History of the western VN industry inspire this thread in anyway? Regardless, I'm glad you posted this because I feel it's important to show how far Fuwanovel has changed since the old days ('the old days' being when Aaeru reigned).

My heart of course says yes, it's my schedule that is the problem. And currently my schedule says... not now at the very least. Especially not for this next month (real life is going to be really busy and tedious for me the next 30 days or so). When you are speaking to Flutterz, definitely! When you are on screen but not speaking to Futterz, than probably not as much. Or at least it won't be the subject of the conversation then. xD Thanks for the support everyone. I'm glad people enjoyed it. And once again, I want to give a huge shout-out to FidgetQueen for creating the face sprites. I doubt it would have been nearly as amusing without them.

Says the guy with over 3000 posts.

Lol, reminds me of this comedy sketch. Particularly at 2:08 in the video:

I'm glad you're doing this. I say this mostly as an acquaintance who appreciates your presence here in this community. I'm not sure what else to say, but I felt like commenting something.

While I'm debating continuing this or not (I originally intended for this to be a one-shot thing). I did plan stuff for later installments in case if I do decide to continue, and believe me I've already assigned you a role.

Tay is actually pretty weak stat wise, he just has a completely over powered weapon (Perma Ban). Which is actually just the penultimate boss's weapon (in the original game) with a modified name ;P. Admittedly the level design in pretty bad, as I didn't put any time into it. All the enemy units were basically left untouched. Since I didn't intent this to be a playable hack (only made it to upload videos of it), I didn't put any effort into the actual level design. The only reason I included the battle scenes was to showcase the different music used. As for why I included more units than were necessary, basically just because I wanted to have more characters. Although, if I were to modify the level design to be more difficult, it would then probably make more sense from a strategic stand point.

So this past week I was kind of bored and decided to dedicate a lot of my free time to this one level ROM hack I did about the Fuwanovel community. Basically I just hacked into one of my favorite video games (Fire Emblem 7 for the gba) and completely customized the text, events, characters, etc. It's just a parody of the VN community with a particular focus on Fuwanovel and with Tay as the main character. Here is the entire Intro and first chapter: Part 1:

Yes, for professionals this is a reasonably attainable feat; but expecting every or even most fan-translations to accomplish high quality I think is a bit unrealistic. When it comes to fan translation the question of quality over quantity comes up. And unfortunately, since English fans are kind of starved of VNs in English, I think many people have consequently lowered their standards (as Pabloc was criticizing). I think there is a sizable amount of people who would rather have a sub-par translation than no translation at all; and I don't think we can particularly blame these people (not everybody has the time or commitment to learn Japanese). Consequently fan translators are just fans, and they realize that they can make people happy even if they work on a translation when their Japanese isn't up to par. Now to be completely honest, I don't think people with sub-par translation skills will ever complete their project, but they can still release partial patches. I think this is why VN Translation Status updates are apparently popular hits on the Fuwazette. English speaking VN fans are so starved of VNs that they are stalking updates for projects. Those who are capable of patiently waiting for quality VNs to receive quality translations will probably eventually put their patience to better use and start learning the language. @sanahtlig I agree. And as you mentioned even bad translations can capture the ideas and themes of what is written. But I feel that most people who criticize translations usually care about way more than just that; the people Pabloc labeled as group 1. I think these people care a lot about subtly in writing, which is much harder to translate. And yes, I do agree that I think they would be better off in Japanese forums.

This is admittedly an inaccurate bias on my part, but I always pictured most people who loved VNs enough to learn Japanese to be relatively anti-social; partly because that's how I was with VNs. To specify, for half of the entire time I've been into VNs I didn't much involve myself with any VN community. Partly because the only communities I knew about then (this was before Fuwanovel) were VNDB and /JP/. And as you hinted at, a lot of my perception of these "elitists" are from the days I lurked /JP/. I like this explanation a lot. As I can completely sympathize with what you are saying, but I think it also showcases an interesting contradiction. What I'm starting to really understand for myself is that even with a good translation, people reading something in Japanese, are going to experience things differently than somebody reading the same thing translated into any other language. What I imagine is frustrating for anybody who is competently Japanese literate in the Western VN community is knowing that they can't discuss what they read (in Japanese) with somebody who doesn't know Japanese (even if they read the same story with a translation). This is where I think hate, or at least anger at translations comes into play. Because a translation will only satisfy the need for somebody who wants to experience a new VN; read it in their language (and yes, it will be at best only slightly different from the original). But people who read the original will still feel isolated. I'm guessing it's kind of like if you know both English and Japanese really well, and were told to teach a class on Shakespeare in Japanese. Even with a fantastic translation; sooo much is lost. Simply because great writers have a talent with using words in a way that only people fluently literate in that language could appreciate. At best you could only hope to discuss the themes, historical, and cultural relevance of Shakespeare to a Japanese audience who read his work in Japanese. Whereas with an English audience, you can really dissect the way Shakespeare playfully uses the English language. Now to be perfectly honest, I don't think most VNs qualify to be considered well written even in their original language; but I fully realize that there is a sizable minority that are. In fact, it's that sizable minority (both the ones that are translated and not) that the western VN community mostly concerns itself with. I must thank everybody who has involved themselves in this conversation for helping me finally understand this. While I don't necessarily agree with people who have extremely harsh (perhaps almost unrealistic) standards for fan-translations; I can at least finally understand where they are coming from. Now if only I could fast forward to the point in time where I can read Japanese fluently. xD For now I'll just have to continue the arduous journey of studying and practicing by reading.

Despite having completed Heisig myself, I think Down's suggestion is the best way to learn Kanji. Once I finished Heisig I started learning grammar, and would practice by reading. You learn Kanji way more efficiently and enjoyably by reading. Putting the words you had to look up in flashcards (or flashcard software) is the best way to go. Also, basic words often get repeated a lot, so eventually you will learn words just by running into them a lot. Heisig has only been helpful for me in writing kanji (which will be useful for me when I start studying Japanese formally in college). But if you just want to read; Heisig is honestly kind of useless. Just makes sure to familiarize yourself with grammar before reading. I recommend reading Basic grammar, Essential grammar, and Special expressions in this guide: Tae Kim's Grammar Guide

I know firecat has the best of intentions. And suicide is a serious (as well as a highly complicated) issue.

The part I bolded in the above quote is probably the key point about what I think. I don't think there is anything wrong in discouraging people from translating something, so long as you provide good reasoning. But from what I've seen, if translators aren't good enough; they will eventually give up somewhere along the lines. It's survival of the fittest in a sense. For the most part, only translations that are good enough to satisfy group 2 will survive to the end of the project. The reason Elitists bother me, is because they often trash on all translations. They behave in such a way where if you read a translated VN, even if it's well translated, they will look down on you. I get the impression that elitists look down on both groups 2 and 3, simply because they don't know Japanese. It's great if you know Japanese, but why be a dick to people who don't? Visual Novel's will never gain more popularity in the West if we have a community of people who will insult you simply for reading any VN translated. Furthermore what eludes me, is why the elitists care in the first place about translations. They know Japanese, they don't need translations. Chronopolis answered this a bit in his post, but I honestly still don't completely understand why they get so butt hurt by translations when it doesn't affect them personally. Bad translations can only damage the experience for people who need a translation.