Zalor

The funny thing for me is that my impression of Japanese creatives (writers, mangaka, game devs, etc) is very positive and I think they have a lot of brilliant minds working in those fields. But my impression of the Japanese consumer base lowers with every year. I think the oppressive education system makes a minority of people snap and a subset of that minority express it through art, which is why their fiction can be so good. But the majority of Japanese manage to conform to the system, and for those who conform I think it permanently damages their creative thinking abilities. It's interesting how Higurashi is the favorite Ryukishi07 work in Japan, and Umineko (which is comparatively a more experimental and imo overall a deeper work) is somewhat scorned in Japan but highly praised in the west. Maybe at my core I'm fundamentally westerncentric, but I think the west is right on this one. Umi > Higurashi. Although without a doubt both are very good. I think Ryukishi07 was tongue and cheekly referring to his Japanese audience in these quotes: pic1, pic2

You put things really well. Umineko's vast scale and how everything gets tied up is my favorite part. As you said, the core story is arguable extremely simple, but its how the real story is everything in between and how vast in scale that is which I love. In a real way, it gets you to question what is the value of reading a story? Enjoying the fun of it and accepting all the fantastical absurdities (magic), or understanding and intellectually dissecting it in search for the "truth", like some kind of detective? Being somebody who for a long time subscribed to the latter style of thinking, I've since adopted the former perspective. In large part, though not entirely because of Umineko. Furthermore concluding a work so long and complicated is no easy feat, and the ending has been having me reread scenes from the VN obsessively. Which hasn't happened to me since I read Suba Hibi. I completely understand your struggle with organizing an analysis of the gold and the golden land. But if you ever were to write it, I would definitely read it.

Lol, mind expanding on that

Wow, somebody really did God's work with that. I'll check that fan made VN then. Since generally I'm not a huge fan of manga. I felt that same way. I've procrastinated reading Umineko for maybe as long as Fuwa has been around. And if you already read through it once, I couldn't imagine rereading the whole thing again. That said, kind of like with Suba Hibi there is a certain joy in not completely knowing and theorizing based on your own interpretations.

Maybe I just didn't have any luck with the forum search feature, but I struggled to find a thread dedicated to discussing Umineko. So I've decided to start one, since it really is one of those VNs you can't stop thinking about after you finish reading it. As the title of this thread warns, this thread is completely open to spoilers of everything covered throughout Episodes 1 - 8 and all of their associates tea parties and extras. Just for courtesy's sake though, I'll include a spoiler tag. I love mind fucks like this, but I'm going to need some time before I can reorient everything into a consistent understanding.

I literally just finished reading Umineko around an hour ago. So these are my raw thoughts and immediate reflections after completing it. I will probably do a more comprehensive overview of Umineko after I've had it digest for a couple of days. What a beast... I first began this journey in mid May, and I've just finished it now. So in around 4 months time, I have clocked in at a total play time of 141 hours. In that time I've not only finished University, worked on multiple projects (both personal and academic), read several books, but I've also moved and started a job. This is to say, I've been quite busy in between reading Umineko. And I've taken multiple breaks from it. It has not been a completely consistent ride from beginning to end. But also, it feels weird to part with it now. Even if I wouldn't touch it for a stretch of weeks sometimes, in the back of my mind it was always present and I felt a pressure to get back to reading it whenever I could. The ending was fantastic, and I feel fully satisfied with it. But now it feels like I have to part with a friend I got to know very well. And despite being quite happy with most of the twists this story had to offer, I can't deny that at times it was a slog. Reading the last part of Ep.8 today I thought I was nearly finished, and yet it still took me ~4 hours to complete. This was mostly due to a very dragged out fight/battle sequence that while interesting in parts (especially at its end), mostly felt bloated. And this criticism of bloat is by no means reserved for only this part, but rather is a consistent issue throughout. The highlights of Umineko are so great, that when you do get to those parts often you instantly forgive the frequency of tedious and dragged out scenes you had to suffer through in order to get to the truly exciting bits. Yet none the less, even if forgivable, these bloated scenes are no joke. If you have an average reading speed like I do, these tedious sections can sometimes take up hours of your time. This was part of the reason I frequently took breaks from Umineko. As often I would finish a fantastic climactic scene and call it a day. But then I knew that the next part would be one of those mundane sections which made it hard to get back into reading the VN the next day. I would actually procrastinate reading Umineko at times precisely because I knew I was facing a part that would be dull and stretch out for a couple of hours. And when its a nice Saturday evening and you can do literally whatever you want, resigning yourself to reading something that you know will be boring for the next 2 hours is a hard decision to make. Even if you know that by powering through those 2 hours of boredom, you will be rewarded thoroughly in the 3rd or 4th hour. If Ryukishi07 got himself a decent editor I think Umineko could have been a quarter or maybe even half as long, and still be just as good. Actually it would probably be better, because then you wouldn't have the unnecessary excess anymore. Despite that though, when Umineko is good it truly is at the level of masterpiece. There really is nothing like it. The entire cast, for the most part, is very strong and memorable. I think that is Ryukishi07's greatest strength as a writer. He consistently creates very interesting characters. And even if his writing often drags on, you still put up with it because you want to see more interactions with these characters and what will happen to them. The introduction of Furudo Erika in the second half was a great treat, and I enjoyed her sadistic and incredibly cruel personality immensely. It was great fun to watch her do intellectual battle and make enemies with everyone. Then there was also Bernkastel, who has been a favorite of mine since early on. In general, all of the witch and supernatural characters were great in my mind. George, Jessica, Kanon, and Shanon never quite fully grew on me, though I did eventually grow more sympathetic to them. However, I definitely found the parts that focused on them the least interesting bits. From episode 1, watching what seems to be the setup for a typical murder mystery evolve so much in scope over the various episodes, I am at awe reflecting on it all now. The story goes in so many different directions, and yet it feels entirely consistent with itself. It's a mystery like no other. It manages to literally breaks all the rules, and yet somehow sticks to them. That in itself, honestly, is proof to me that magic exists. For anyone that enjoys great fiction, Umineko is certainly a work worth reading.

Seconding this. There are plenty of great older VNs worth checking out. And the above ones are fantastic

I'm in agreement with Dreamysyu, I would say that most VNs have multiple endings. I would recommend checking the thread, 50 Translated VNs you should read before you die Of the VNs in that list, I personally would highly recommend Symphonic Rain, Yume Miru Kusuri and Swan Song. If you're okay with VNs that have less than 4 endings, Saya no Uta has 3 endings and each are really interesting in their own way.

Haha welcome to the club. Key is a great stating place for VNs, and where many long time VN fans got their start. Kanon was one of my first VNs, and look I've been reading VNs for almost 10 years now lol.

Synergia is a title I've been anticipating since its project announcement on Fuwa way back when. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I think it's main selling point is the art and unique Cyberpunk aesthetic. I couldn't point out the specific details, but the art somewhat reminds me of Doomfest's art. In the sense that both Doomfest and Radi have a quality to their art that is definitely very anime in influence, but it also has aspects that are distinctly western in feel. I love this combination. Personally when VNs deviate too far from the anime aesthetic I find them off putting, but I do like to see variation. And the typical anime style seen in most JVNs nowadays bores me. Both Doomfest and Radi hit the in between sweet spot perfectly for me.

Going to have to second this. I still hate Squealer though... But he definitely had good reasons.

I'm not entirely sure if it's what you are looking for, but since you mentioned Psycho Pass I think its equally applicable. The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley has an even more methodical and pathological system of human societal organization. And it also fits the criteria where the villains (the system and the select few people predetermined from birth to be in the 'World controller class') don't do anything crazy that could put the system at risk of collapse. I would also argue that Gendo Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion perfectly fits in your desired category.

Welcome to the forums! And by all means you are more than permitted to shamelessly self-promote your VN project. I would be willing to bet that a good 50% of the topics on the Original VN Projects board were made by people who joined this site with the sole purpose of promoting their VN and vanished just as soon. But please don't deny that this whole entire thread was aimed at anything but self-promotion. If it was a genuine introduction thread, you would have shared a little bit about how you got into VNs and maybe share your tastes in VNs. Or share about how you discovered this site.

I'm the opposite, for a very long time I did my very best to avoid reading any VNs or getting any games if it meant I had to make a Steam account. I don't like Steam bothering me for updates, nor do I like getting their pop-ups for various other miscellaneous things when you use their client even slightly unconventionally. That said, there is a huge convenience factor to it. Especially since there is a good crossover between gamers and VN readers. So I definitely understand why Steam became the default option for many once VNs started gaining in popularity in western markets. That said, I really do hate how a handful of tech monopolies (or oligopolies if you want to get technical about it) have so much control over virtually everything we do. And I kind of hoped that at least VNs could manage to avoid falling into their orbit. If big Eroge had to exist (to facetiously quote @Zakamutt signature), I would rather that monopoly belong to an actual Visual Novel company that cares about visual novels to some extent. Steam really doesn't care about VNs, yet they are happy to take advantage of an unfair market place to absorb the western VN market.

Juniper's Knot really takes me back lol. Doomfest and Dischan was a great combination. I agree a lot that there is something nice and kind of poetic about shorter VNs. They tend to me more to the point and avoid overstaying their welcome. 'Meandering' is the perfect word to describe the bloat that tends to often find itself in longer visual novels (JVNs tend to be the worst perpetrator of this offense too). As for Lucky me, Lucky You it looks pretty interesting and falls under that nice short length we were just talking about. I'll check it out within this or next week.

Lesser known than its more popular sister, The Dandelion Girl is another VN that at least started its development by anonymous users on 4chan. And like Katawa Shoujo it's quite good, although very different. And in fact, I think it contrasts quite nicely with Katawa Shoujo. Katawa Shoujo very intentionally strove to conform to the standard visual novel formula. Hence why it takes place in Japan, in a high school, has branching routes with various heroines, and even included H-scenes. I think the goal of Katawa Shoujo was to make a solid entry in the visual novel landscape within the standards commonly set by the High School romance genre it chose. The Dandelion Girl on the other hand is not an original story, being an adaptation of a short-story of the same name by Robert F. Young. To me this was a breath of fresh air, as I always welcome VNs that see themselves more as digital books then as games. The early to mid 2000's doujin scene seemed to embrace this mentality a bit with works like Narcissu and True Remembrance, and accordingly the art style of The Dandelion Girl somewhat reminds me of True Remembrance. In fact as a whole the Kinetic Novel genre/medium seems to be a weird bastard child of VNs that probably would see more success with print novel readers rather than with it's current target demographic of VN readers. Which is probably at least among the reasons that The Dandelion Girl seems to be languishing in relative obscurity. But it is a solid adaptation which really places the reader in the world of the original short story. Its opening scene where the screen fades into a view of a blue sky with a melancholic piano piece playing in the background creates a strong ambiance which contextualizes the writing quite nicely. Overall the music and visuals do a good job supporting the writing. Never interfering with it by being overly flashy, nor contradicting the mood of the prose. It serves its purpose by distracting your eyes and ears, and allowing your mind to effortlessly focus on the story. And before you know it, you'll be finished with the heart warming tale and left with a cozy feeling inside. If Katawa Shoujo is nice meal, than The Dandelion Girl is a nice evening snack to accompany your tea.

Welcome to the forums!

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that you've softened up on them a bit. And I am in huge agreement that they should be used purposefully, and not just lazily thrown in. Which unfortunately you do see a lot of the latter in many VNs. Ultimately I see them as a kind of spice. If used sparingly, but effectively they can have a nice effect on the meal. But if poured excessively partly to cover up how unflavorful the dish is, well it doesn't really improve anything lol

Absolutely savage take, and completely agreed.

Didn't know people liked the dark theme, I'm glad to see a return to Fuwa Green. I still will forever associate the site with this look: Also a rare sighting of Tay reminiscing about Aaeru.

This was in very belated indirect response to him actually lol. His arguments in that post has been in the back of my head for a while, and recently I ran into it again by accident. Which prompted me to write this. So yeah you're right on the money!

That's absolutely insane (in a good way). I don't think I could finish reading that many books in the given time frame of 40 days. If the rule that 90% of anything is shit holds, then maybe there were around 7 books you would say were fully worth your time?

Hmm, maybe distributor wasn't quite the right word to use, but I don't know what would be a better word to describe it with. VN publishing platform, maybe? Fuwanovel as far as I can tell is the only VN site where the EVN crowd and the JVN crowd mix even a little bit. And the Original VN Projects board sees a decent amount of threads of EVN creators marketing their stuff here. Why not take that a step further and let them upload their projects to Fuwanovel itself. Similar to how Steam is a platform where indie game devs can easily publish their stuff, and gamers can easily find and discover new content. I know that Steam already has a category for VNs, but I think VNs as a medium would benefit if they had their own version of that for just VNs. A place where creators can upload their projects directly to a site where a prospective audience is. And likewise, a site where users can easily download/purchase said uploaded VNs. Certainly it would emphasize that VNs are a medium itself and not just a genre. Furthermore, I think it would be very beneficial for both the EVN scene, and for casual VN readers. Having all of this in one site might encourage some people to make more EVNs that caters more to the tastes of JVN fans, and JVN fans by getting more exposure to EVNs might become more adventurous with their own tastes. Realistically, I realize there would be serious hurdles to overcome. Affording the server space alone is a realistic concern. But theoretically, I don't know... I think its an idea with decent potential.

This, but 100% unironically

Thank you for the explanation! It makes a lot more sense now. I'm not quite ready to officially go public with anything yet, but it's good to know what I have to do once I am ready.