Zalor

Welcome! Actually I partly responded to you on the Symphonic Rain thread. I agree with you, Torta is a fantastic character. If you liked Symphonic Rain I would actually recommend Kanon over Little Busters. Kanon does a very similar thing of making characters look kind of simple at first but then presents them as being far more complex later on. Also, Kanon's common route isn't nearly as long and boring as Little Buster's imo. Quartett! is another visual novel that revolves around music. It's quite short so it couldn't hurt to try it.

Common guys, Fal is not a bad person. I don't understand the hate she is getting. Actually Also in regards to Torta, I agree with you, she is probably the most complex character and she certainly deserves more attention. The only problem is that I would have to reread both her route and Al Fine in order to fully understand her. In fact Torta may very well be the next character I do a character analysis of.

I did several combinations. But again it's a bit hazy in my memory. Other then a few joke names (that I've forgotten) I remember changing the name to my last name.

I think this is what InvertedMouse was asking about. That if you are an OELVN developer are you best off (financially) if you add large breasts and "write random weeaboo crap"? The answer is yes and no. If you want quick and meaningless profit then that this the correct choice to make at this time. But if one were serious then one would accept that VNs have virtually no market in the west. Instead OELVN developers should try establishing their own market by making what they want to make. The profit will be crap at first, but if you are persistent over time your profit will gradually get larger because you are producing something of quality. Eventually your VNs of quality will be noticed and the market will make a shift away from smut. Lets not forget that Japanese VNs were predominately porn games in the mid 90's. Japanese VN's have had far more time to evolve from hentai games to a medium used for storytelling. OELVNs need to go through this same evolutionary step as well.

Lol this brings back memories. Kanon was my first VN. After I finally got it to work and I discovered the option to change names I totally did. I had fun with that for a good 10 minutes. Then I installed the voice patch and it completely killed the novelty. I changed the name back to his original and have never used that feature in any VN since. That was years ago, I actually only remembered about that recently.

Hate them. I dropped Little Busters because the common route bored the the hell out of me. Currently I'm reading Rewrite (just started it two days ago) and I am really trying to like it. But just like with Little Busters the long common route is losing my interest. I miss the days when VNs were shorter and to the point, I hate stories that drag out.

The Visual Novel people just finished is always their favorite. If it's still your favorite 5 months from now then I'll believe you.

I couldn't disagree more with this statement. In fact one of the few things that I have to criticize Katawa Shoujo for is that it sold out to this narrow minded belief too. Even the Japanese don't follow this. Symphonic Rain took place in a fictional Italian town, Quartett! took place in a fictional German town. The only reason westerner game developers came up with this idea is because they noticed that their target audience are western Otaku. They figured their games would be more marketable (to this incredible niche audience) if they try to give them what they are used to (a Japanese feel). In several other threads I saw this as a reason why people don't like OELVN's because this is phony. If you've never been to Japan, and you don't really know what Japan is like, then using it as a setting is kind of shallow (which marketing often is). I have maintained, and will continue to maintain that if OELVN want to flourish in the west, they must sever their ties with Japan (somewhat). The problem is that doing so would mean having to create a brand new market for VNs and abandoning the current one. The sad part is that OELVN developers who make their stuff for-profit would rather maintain their small market, then take risks and create potentially a far bigger market. Capitalism is all about risk and reward, and currently we have very few OELVN developers who are willing to actually take a risk. (Dischan being the only company that comes to mind). Look at it this way. Film is a western creation, but culture's all over the world have created movies. Would the heavily acclaimed Japanese film maker Akira Kurusawa been nearly as successful if he chose to imitate western films as opposed to add his Japanese influence to his films? Hell no! The same is ultimately true with any art form. OELVNs that add their western influence (like Dischan's visual novels) ultimately contain far better writing then any VN that pretends to be Japanese. I'm sorry if this comes across as rambling but I really should have went to bed two hours ago...

Yay! Here you are:

Look's like you have finally hit the rut that every western VN fan is condemned to hit, running out of good VNs to read... I looked up your name on VNDB and of the VNs you haven't already read that I can recommend are Dysfunctional Systems (arguably the best OELVN), and Quartett. Dysfunctional Systems being Sci-Fi, and Quartett for romance (kind of). Quartett also has a very interesting visual presentation. Also, I haven't read this myself yet, but Shikkoku no Sharnoth is supposed to be a good mystery VN. However, If you like VNs enough I highly recommend starting to learn some Japanese. One of the great things about Fuwa is that there is a good amount of people here learning Japanese, so overall it's a very encouraging environment for learning the language. In fact it's because of Fuwa that I finally felt encouraged to start learning the language. It's a rough journey, but it is thanks to this site that I realized that it's possible.

Kanon: has a cousin route (Nayuki).

Swan Song has main characters of the college age. What's nice about them is that they have rich back stories and feel like mature adults.

Congratulations! Time to make my obligatory Evangelion reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyFQVZ2h0V8 But seriously thanks for your work, as well as Nosebleed's, Maefdom's, Kaguya's contributions. Now when somebody says a character is Dandere I don't have to nod my head in agreement without actually knowing what they're talking about.

I'm finally reading Rewrite! I remember when Rewrite first came out in Japan. I must have watched the opening countless times. I also saved pictures of Shizuru Nakatsu, (I kinda had an eye-patch thing back then ). Anyway, the translation patch has been out for well over a year now and its only now that I've finally decided to read it.

Thank you. Also I corrected "summery" to "summary", thanks for pointing that out. I feel so embarrassed at all these silly spelling errors of mine. Maybe I should get more sleep...

Both of you raise fair points, I've already edited and fixed the error. I'm sorry that I was a bit stubborn about editing it. I was certain that his given name in the translation was "Yuichi" until I remembered that upon first getting this VN I changed the name to my last name. But after I applied the voice patch the novelty was ruined so I changed the name back. I must have missed the extra "u" when I changed the name back. (It's been "Yuichi" in my copy of Kanon for years lol).

Fuwa has certainly grown. I joined around a year and a half ago and to me it doesn't feel like a lot changed (this is good). I still love the community like when I was new here, everybody is still civil. The only thing I feel kind of nostalgic for was Ryoji's discussions of anime. That guy has been watching anime for decades, and so I loved hearing his perspective on newer and older anime. Also regarding Fuwa's growth, I really like how much more active the forums are now. That is definitely a plus.

I kind of meant what I said as referential humor. However, philosophical works branching all the way to Plato's Republic argued that children should be raised in a group and not by their parents. So I think you have many great minds backing up your opinion. I personally don't know how I feel about this aspect of Brave New World, but I definitely wouldn't want to live in Huxley's utopia/dystopia. Unless if I was destined to be a World Controller.

They have one, it's called School Days./endtroll When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World I don't think he actually wanted this to happen.

Sorry for the double post. As far as I can tell "Yuichi" and "Yuuichi" are both commonly used spellings. I searched across the web, and I found both spellings commonly used. I personally think that "Yuichi" looks prettier in English than "Yuuichi". Also the wiki page of Kanon uses "Yuichi". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanon.

Thanks for the feedback it's much appreciated. I myself was quite confused with how to include summary and analysis. On the one hand I learned all my life that when you write an interpretive paper you should write it in such a way where even somebody who has not read the work should be able to follow along. I also feel that some people who read Mai's route years ago might be a bit iffy with the details, which are absolutely necessary in order to understand my points. On the other hand I agree with you that for somebody who knows Mai's routes well the summary is quite annoying. In an earlier draft I basically included one large paragraph of pure summary (for those that might appreciate it), and then another large paragraph after it that was pure analysis. In the end I decided to interweave summary and analysis where I could, as it ultimately felt a bit more smooth that way. I tried to cut back as much as I could with summary but Mai's back story is rather convoluted, and the details of it all are crucial. I'm glad to hear you like my analysis though. Everybody can improve their writing, but so long as my interpretations were well presented then I did my job. That's a whole another paper buddy. I'm totally not prepared to write such a paper anytime soon, (I'll have to reread each route again). But simply put, no character is as simple as they appear. Each character's quirk does more then provide comedic effect, but they tend to subtly hint at deeper issues with the character.

Thanks Tay!~

Check this out then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_marriage. This actually happened in America during the 19th century. Scroll down and read the "In modern U.S cultures" section. Also I agree with you, as long as everything is consensual and everybody is happy I don't see a problem with it. I'm only going to dig into this topic because you've stated that Anthropology is an interest of yours, and we discussed this in my Anthropology class last semester. Incest isn't as damaging to the gene pool as people make it out to be. It does slightly increase chances of damaged genes, but the slight increase isn't nearly as bad as many people make it out to be. The specifics of Incest taboo's vary largely from each culture. For some cultures marrying and sleeping with a first cousin is repulsive, for others first cousins are A-ok. In fact what's interesting is that hypothetically speaking if two individuals entered a consensual incestuous relationship they wouldn't be harming anybody. And even if you consider the slight increase of unfavorable genes as harmful, then in that case they don't have to have kids. They could have all the safe sex they want and they wouldn't be hurting anybody. That said, while I'm played the devil's advocate I want to make it clear that like everybody else I grew up in a culture with incest taboos and incest grosses me out too. But this is purely for cultural reasons.

Well it's finally done. In side the spoiler contains a literary analysis of Mai Kawasumi and Sayuri Kurata from the visual novel and anime Kanon. I explore the complexities of their friendship through analyzing them as individuals. I don't want to say any thing more because of spoilers. Speaking of spoilers, if you have not watched the Kanon 2006 anime, or read Mai and Sayuri's routes in the Kanon Visual Novel then you have been warned. However, if you read Mai's route without reading Sayuri's, I personally wouldn't stray away from this paper as Sayuri's route is only around an extra 30 min - 60 min of original text. So I don't think you would be spoiling yourself from much, but in the end it's your choice. This paper does not spoil any other character routes. A few notes about how I incorporated quotes: 1) Non-Directional Translations created the English patch for the Kanon visual novel, so my quotes are of their translation. 2) After I finish a quote I cite the character's route by writing their name, and then I include the in-game day that it was said. For example: if Mai said "I like Usagi-san", and the in-game day was January 15th. I would write it like this: Mai said, "I like Usagi-san"(Mai, Jan 15). This is significant because... (It's not).

Welcome. Sadly I don't know anybody in real life who reads VNs either. =/ I tried introducing them to some of my friends, but they never tried. In any case I have had plenty of good VN related discussions here and I hope you do to.