What are you reading? Untranslated edition

[Zalor]

Alright, I finally finished the Its my own Invention chapter in Subarashiki Hibi. It was really cool to read things through Mamiya's perspective. While the ending to Down the Rabbit Hole 2 felt more thrilling and climactic than the ending to this chapter, it was definitely cool to see the same ending through Mamiya's perspective. And one huge question of mine was answered.

 

I had no idea what to make of it in Down the Rabbit Hole 2 when Mamiya told Minakami in his final moment that he did all this because he liked her. And then we find out at the end of this chapter, that he only said those words to see if he could get a rise out of her. And then after telling her that, he basically thinks to himself "lol, nope!"

This chapter felt a fair bit longer than Down the Rabbit Hole 2. But seeing Mamiya go from just some wimpy kid who gets severely bullied, to either a lunatic or the "messiah", was just such an interesting and enjoyable experience.

 

And seeing him kick the crap out of Yuuki, made me feel so good. I really hate bullies, so to see Mamiya finally get his revenge made me so happy. That bastard deserved what he got for all the severe ways he tormented Mamiya for no reason at all. (At the point in the story that I currently am at, there seem to be no reasons behind his bullying at least). I still smile when I see this picture:

 

Some criticisms I have for this chapter are the H-scenes. I really didn't like some of the H-scenes as some of them just made no sense to me. Somebody once told me that the H-scenes can ruin Subahibi for some people, and I can totally see how now.

 

The incestuous H-scene with the teacher was just retarded and made little to any sense. I wished it wasn't there. That H-scene alone made me contemplate dropping the VN for a few minutes. Obviously I didn't, but that H-scene just left a really bad taste in my mouth. I don't mind taboo H-scenes in a story if they make sense, but this one didn't make an sense at all. I also didn't like how towards the end of the chapter there were a bunch of H-scenes. It was more annoying than anything else for me. I wanted to read what would happen next, I didn't want to be interrupted with H-scene after H-scene.

Anyway, aside from the H-scenes I really liked this chapter. I'm looking forward to Looking Glass Insects!

[Bandit E]

So, finished Majikoi A-5

Spoiler

Pretty cool, Margit route was pretty good, Jikurun and Kojima were the best, they really had healing personalities, I thought. Also, Yamato turned out kind of badass in this one.

Yoshitsune route was not bad, although I felt slightly underwhelmed by the unmasking of the infamous M and all, it just felt a bit anticlimactic to me, but hey, at least Aki was funny.

As for Takae, she is without doubt my favorite heroine of the disk, her route was interesting and cute, and the part in the desert with the random student council president appearance was interesting, pretty cool. I did like Takae from the first glimpse we caught of her in Majikoi S and I'm glad it turned out that way.

 

Then I thought it was over, I was feeling happy to escape with my life, when all of a sudden, I found out that a plus disk was released with the special edition last december.

"Fuck me", I thought, as I had already switched gears and gotten ready to read Grisaia no Meikyuu in English to get a bit of a rest here. But I decided to charge forward, and finish the series once and for all, after all, a mere plus disk can't be that long, right ? "Fuck me", I thought again, as I finished the 3 main routes in 2 days and realized there was still a last special route left.

Spoiler

Also, Aki route was pretty good, you can get a cg of Shibunkyou's boobs if you make the right choice, so that's cool.

Thelma route was shorter and mostly uneventful but still enjoyable, I was glad to see the Ryouken Butai again.

Bushou route though was pretty good, I wasn't even dreaming of an H-scene with the student council president anymore by that point, so yeah, really happy about that overall.

 

And now I'm stuck in the graduation route, I just can't seem to keep my interest in it. I was never a huge fan of the Agave route in the original game (although Tatsuko made it worthwhile) or the Koyuki after route in S, but the fact that I could just stroll through them in English made it a lot easier on me. Now I'm just tired, I want to do something else for a while, but I know if I do that I'm pretty much never going to find the motivation to finish it ever again, so yeah, push forward, show your guts, all that stuff.

 

EDIT: Yay, I did it ! I'm tired now, gonna rest for a while

Edited January 17, 2017 by Bandit E

[Narcosis]

On 2017/1/11 at 1:19 PM, Dergonu said:

Not sure what I'll read next. Currently I have Tenkiame, Tayutama 1, Gore screaming show, Sakura no Uta, Komorebi no Nostalgica and Miagete Goran on my list. I want to read them all but can't decide on one, so any help in picking one is appriciated.

Tenkiame, obviously.

[Chronopolis]

12 hours ago, Narcosis said:

Tenkiame, obviously.

Spoiler

 

 

 Isn't this a common line, though? I swear I've heard it somewhere else.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Chronopolis

[Narcosis]

7 minutes ago, Chronopolis said:

 Isn't this a common line, though? I swear I've heard it somewhere else.

They're not as fun as here, though.

[ChaosRaven]

So, after several months of reading (with interruptions), I finally managed to finish Mirai Nostalgia. Honestly, I'm not really sure how long it really was, but even if I just played the two main routes from Anna and Iori, it felt like an eternity.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. Partly because I had different expectations about it. Synopsis and tags in VNDB about the story actually looked a lot more interesting than it tuned out to be. When I started to read it I therefore thought it would be more of a mystery VN, but it turned out to be an almost 100% pure slice of life VN with little to nothing happening and just some slight nakige elements at the end instead.

Slice of life is usually intended more for relaxed reading and chilling out, but since reading Japanese is still a quite exhausting process for me, I need at least a bit more action to feel rewarded for my efforts. Especially since I'm not the biggest fan of slice of life VN's anyway. And this was pretty much like reading Princess Evangile in Japanese. And what made it even worse is that I was also reading Yoakena in English at the same time which was even more slice of life. As a consequence I had to tone down my reading to smaller doses to avoid going crazy. 

Anyway, just taken as it is, it's probably a decent slice of life VN with some likable heroines and good visuals. However, there are some noticable flaws that keep it from being more than that. And that's first and foremeost the protagonist. He's so passive and submissive that he's easily hetare 3.0. Granted, that's not exactly an uncommon problem for Japanese VN's, but it was worse than usual here. Especially, since certain heroines being madly in love with the protagonist was a central element of the story. And having a protagonist about as useful as a doorpost doesn't make that particular convincing. It also completely ruined the romance scenes since there was almost no chemistry between the protagonist and the heroines. The VN was also painfully boring at times, although that's probably a common problem of slice of life VN's.

The nakige elements towards the end were also just very light. That's not to say I would have wanted lots of heavy drama, but here it just turned to whiny slice of life for a short time and then back to plain comedy slice of life for hours. Overall, I would have just liked to see a normal and serious conversation between mature persons for a change, instead of almost non-stop trivial cutesy and comedy chit chat. On the other hand, some of the moe and comedy wasn't so bad, it was just a too heavy dose for me. 

Heroine ratings: Anna > Haru > Iori > Uta > Kanata > Shizuku >> Nono > Hinano (The latter two felt strangely out of place. I think the VN would have been better without them.)

Overall rating: 6.0 / 10 (I would have probably rated it a bit higher if I would have read it in English though, so I'm partly to blame.)

Also played Mama-Haha inbetween since it reminded me of Tsumamigui 3 and JD Onsen to get my head free a bit. The former was better than expected while the latter was kinda plain even if the animated scenes were a nice change of pace. Still busy with Unionism Quartet A3 which is kind of okay for fan service when taken in smaller doses just one route after another with small breaks inbetween.

Anyway, currently I really feel burned out from slice of life so I'll keep a distance from such VN's for a while. Which also means I'll delay Da Capo 3 a bit since I don't want to ruin my experience by not being in the mood for it. I think I'm therefore going to read Ikusa Megami Verita next in Japanese. That should be more what I need now.

Edited January 29, 2017 by ChaosRaven

[Funnerific]

20 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

*Mirai Nostalgia*

And it looked so promising

Thanks for saving me the stress of going through that. I expected this one would become my entry point to Purple Soft, but it looks like I'll be going with something else instead.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Funnerific

[MiyazawaLulu]

Forgot to say it but I finished New Danganronpa V3 a few days ago. Man, I cannot wait to see the reactions when the game gets released in English... the ending has completely split the Japanese fandom into two factions (and one of them is giving 1-star reviews at Amazon...).

Spoiler

Up until Chapter 5, it was your typical Danganronpa, but Chapter 6, ending and epilogue took a heavy turn into meta, basically making the player the mastermind (and also making me feel like crap in the process). I, for one, really like when I'm not just a player, but being played with, so this ending and all the implications about fiction and lies was very good, albeit maybe *too* critical of the videogame industry & the fans. For me, it's clear that they don't want to continue with the franchise (they made some harsh puns with Square-Enix most famous titles as an example of what should NOT be done), and they closed everything with this in terms of plot and also by making an ending so provocative it made customer reviews explode. And they perfectly knew it was going to be like this, there's a lot of fan bashing foreshadowing in the game itself.

 

[Dergonu]

Finished chapter 2 and 3 of ChuSingura, on chapter 4 atm. This chapter is a tad bit more difficult compared to the previous ones, as there is a lot more political talk and stuff like that. 江戸時代 politics isn't the easiest to understand, but my Japanese history class is helping out a bunch with a lot of the terms etc so it's not that bad, just a bit boring at times.

Though, Ichigaku having an important role in this chapter makes it worth it, so.

Not to mention

Spoiler

the fact that she seemingly has H-scenes in this chapter based off the opening movie is very... "motivating"

I thought I had to wait until the fandisk for that. Score!

 

I'm also going to start up the new Vanadis game, Mamono Musume no Sodatekata ~Lamia & Harpy~, as it doesn't seem too long and I love me some monster girls. Will hopefully be a nice game to use as a break from all the freaking 江戸時代 talk.

[Dergonu]

Finished chapter 4 of ChuSinGura, about to start the last chapter now.

Will probably make a longer post on the game once I finish the last chapter, so for now let's just say... I came into ch.4 expecting Ichigaku, and was not dissapointed.

(This CG is by far my favorite from the entire game so far.)

Spoiler

 

Meanwhile, I'm also playing that new Vanadis game. It is pretty cute. Picked the harpy for my first playthrough, though I have only raised her for like, 10 days or something so far.

She is adorable. A little chick that is scared of everything.

Spoiler

 

 

The best part is that you get a choice during one of these scenes, "try scaring her more." Amazing parenting/ 10.

[Funnerific]

Setsuei

Great game, full of drama, dark and depressing stuff, but not the hopelessly depressing kind. Strong story. Multiple surprising plot twists and developments.

It got a little repetitive at times, but that didn't bother me too much.

The whole game pretty much revolves around one heroine with all routes but one being hers and tbh I couldn't really come to like her, but it's not really a game you play for the characters.

Also don't mind the weird font on the screenshots on VNDB, the default font is good idk what's up with that there.

[Toranth]

5 hours ago, Funnerific said:

Setsuei

Great game, full of drama, dark and depressing stuff, but not the hopelessly depressing kind. Strong story. Multiple surprising plot twists and developments.

It got a little repetitive at times, but that didn't bother me too much.

The whole game pretty much revolves around one heroine with all routes but one being hers and tbh I couldn't really come to like her, but it's not really a game you play for the characters.

Also don't mind the weird font on the screenshots on VNDB, the default font is good idk what's up with that there.

Yes!

Man, I love that game.  It's a wonderful way to present the story... a series of "What if?" type branches, showing how decisions can have long term effects, spread out over 10-15 years of the main character's life.

I'm glad to see someone else read and enjoy Setsuei.  In my opinion, it's been sadly neglected.  Even though it got good reviews, most people still ignored it (both East and West).

[Funnerific]

5 hours ago, Toranth said:

Yes!

Man, I love that game.  It's a wonderful way to present the story... a series of "What if?" type branches, showing how decisions can have long term effects, spread out over 10-15 years of the main character's life.

I'm glad to see someone else read and enjoy Setsuei.  In my opinion, it's been sadly neglected.  Even though it got good reviews, most people still ignored it (both East and West).

Spoiler

The choices that actually change anything come only a few years before the main events start taking place. Tbh aside from the ones with Narumi all the rest just change the protagonist's personality and how mentally strong and proactive he becomes to face the upcoming events. A lot of things "still happen". Not that I mind one bit though, it's great.

I know the feel though, wish someone here read my favourite untranslated VN

Edited February 13, 2017 by Funnerific

[Dergonu]

I finally finished ChuSinGura, after several months of reading. Pretty proud of myself for having read such an incredibly long game in Japanese, hehe.

 

Will write a longer blog post about it later, but here is my overall thoughts on the game: (Should be pretty much spoiler free.)

I very much enjoyed the mix between serious, nearly utsuge level feels and silly humor. There is such a thing as a too serious story, and that also goes for too goofy. To me, ChuSinGura hit a very nice place in the middle of those two, balancing the elements well. Not going to lie, I cried a lot during this one. I also laughed until my stomach hurt during certain parts, too.

Suguha has become my favorite main character from any of the games that I have read so far.
He felt very... human through the whole game, if that makes any sense. His reactions to what happened made perfect sense to me, and I felt like I was in the situation with him a lot of the times during the really emotional scenes. He isn't your standard run-of-the-mill, clueless moron, but he also isn't a living Deus ex machina, like some protagonists. Overall, a pretty perfect main character in my opinion. Badass, funny, but still pretty... "believable".

The antagonists were amazing as well. Ichigaku is my favorite part of the whole game tbh. (As you might be able to tell from me having kept her as my avatar ever since I started reading the game. ) Shinpachi was a wonderful character, too. Don't really want to talk too much about the antagonists to avoid spoilers, so let's just leave it at the fact that they were great.

I liked all the heroines, even Emoshichi, which was a big surprise to me. I thought her chapter would be a bit of a pain to get through, as I didn't really like her too much at first, but it ended up being one of the better ones tbh. Her role in the chapter, and the way her character changed was fantastic. She went from being a bit annoying to becoming one of the better characters in the game.
Among the four heroines, Kuranosuke is my favorite though. ご城代 4 life. Nuff said.

The plot was very interesting, and although it got kinda crazy at times, I never saw the plot twists and turns etc coming, and it kept me glued to the screen until the last few minutes. Very well written game. What I liked the most was the way the game introduced tiny hints to something early on, then let the story go on for hours and hours before tying that little thing into the story again later. It kept doing it, and I kept going "ohhhh, right!" every time, lol.

 

Basically, I loved it. Will probably read it again someday. I don't know if I should start on the fandisk right away, or if I should wait a little bit and play some shorter games before I start on another huge project like that again, though.

[Chronopolis]

Playing Kamisama no Game. I checked out this title after seeing Dergonu mention it on twitter (thanks!).

 

The game's a psychological VN. It takes delight in setting up for the trainwreck to come. It isn't a utsuge, though, and by that I mean "no hope, no redemption". I guess that's typical of the genre, as you need ups and downs to make a gripping survival game. If it was all utsu, it'd be more of a tragic, atmospheric work. 

 

The sexual content isn't that extreme (yet), but the hint of plausibility kind of reminds you how depraved the situation is.

 

The game offers a plausible view of the characters and their mental states. I don't really agree 100% with all psychological logic portrayed, but that's inevitable. I can say it's not totally bullshit. It's quite interesting. One complaint I have is that the game is a little too wordy with its scenes. I skipped through some bits. I'm also not really invested in the characters, but I can connect to them because some of the points raised about/by them are interesting.

 

Overall, pretty impressed. Managed to keep my interest even though this kind of story isn't so much my cup of tea anymore (because of how not pleasant it is to watch such a fucked up situation unfold). It's like a trainwreck you know is coming but you can't not see how it happens. What have I got myself into.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Chronopolis

[Dergonu]

Good to hear the game is enjoyable. Looked like @Nosebleed took a liking to it as well. 

I haven't had much time to read recently because of uni, but I look forward to reading the rest of this game when I'm not as busy. 

[Nosebleed]

Kami-sama no Game is way longer than I initially planned. In fact, I'm finding myself skimming through h-scenes because they're just so frequent. Otherwise I would never finish the game.

It really is a game I wish I had more time to dedicate to. I agree it can get very wordy as well (to the point where I get bored).

[melo4496]

I'm on Amatsutsumi and am liking Hotaru a lot. Most probably I'll go straight with Hotaru, and read Mana and Kokoro if I still have time. 

lol...

主人公かっこいいっすね！

[Chronopolis]

4 hours ago, melo4496 said:

I'm on Amatsutsumi and am liking Hotaru a lot. Most probably I'll go straight with Hotaru, and read Mana and Kokoro if I still have time. 

lol...

主人公かっこいいっすね！

I only played the start of Amamtsumi myself, but that conversation was great 

I marathoned Kami-sama no Game for a week and really liked it. The characters and semi-realisticness stood out. Only thing that might be worth mentioning before hand is that in a true sense it's still an open ending. The novel's set up directly for a sequel. Still found it really good though. Overall, the less you know about it going in the better.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Chronopolis

[Yuuko]

4 hours ago, melo4496 said:

I'm on Amatsutsumi and am liking Hotaru a lot. Most probably I'll go straight with Hotaru, and read Mana and Kokoro if I still have time. 

You need to play all of it! It's super good!! 

[Riku]

Well, in the end I couldn't wait this summer like I said in @Clephas' review of Suisei Ginka, and I started reading Ruitomo. I just finished Rui's route.

To be honest, while it's not boring (I liked the banter of the characters), the story isn't really entertaining either. I know it's only the first route and it really begins to deliver with Iyo's route, but when I know I'll have to play Atori and Koyori's routes first which most people say are under the rest, I'm a little reticent to read them. Well, at least the dialogues are good.

Now, about the reading difficulty, while I can understand what I read (Well, mostly), I'm sure I must have missed quite a number of between the lines meaning. Well, I guess that if I end up really liking the VN, it gives one more reason to re-read it once my Japanese is better.

 

[Jartse]

13 hours ago, Riku said:

Well, in the end I couldn't wait this summer like I said in @Clephas' review of Suisei Ginka, and I started reading Ruitomo. I just finished Rui's route.

To be honest, while it's not boring (I liked the banter of the characters), the story isn't really entertaining either. I know it's only the first route and it really begins to deliver with Iyo's route, but when I know I'll have to play Atori and Koyori's routes first which most people say are under the rest, I'm a little reticent to read them. Well, at least the dialogues are good.

Now, about the reading difficulty, while I can understand what I read (Well, mostly), I'm sure I must have missed quite a number of between the lines meaning. Well, I guess that if I end up really liking the VN, it gives one more reason to re-read it once my Japanese is better.

 

It was amusing to anticipate how/when Tomo gets busted in those routes.

Everytime someone mentions Amatsutsumi the dual of them doing the こころん ほたるん gets stuck in my head - it's almost as bad as that frozen song.

Recently finished Sakura no Uta - I was a bit surprised and disappointed as to how it ends, while its good and all, overall I find it too overrated looking that the overwhelming list of 10s on vndb (probably just rated from the last few chapters). Minor spoiler thoughts:

Spoiler

The VN work overall had varying quality issues (Like PicaPica) and things don't really pick up until the Shizuku route.

Personally I find past story (Shizuku and IV routes) being the highlights of the vn and more interesting than the present story (Makoto/Rin/Common), where the reader is often left stranded because of a lack of the protags awareness of the past and the narration being completely misleading (even though they are suppose to be the protags thoughts)

There's a glaring example of this right at the start of the vn with regards to the inheirtance.

 

[melo4496]

23 hours ago, Chronopolis said:

I only played the start of Amamtsumi myself, but that conversation was great 

I marathoned Kami-sama no Game for a week and really liked it. The characters and semi-realisticness stood out. Only thing that might be worth mentioning before hand is that in a true sense it's still an open ending. The novel's set up directly for a sequel. Still found it really good though. Overall, the less you know about it going in the better.

Tsukkomi-boke on this one is really good i can't stop taking screenshots 

23 hours ago, Kiriririri said:

You need to play all of it! It's super good!! 

Ooohhh. 気になるじゃんかぃ！

There's a high chance for me to read Mana and Kokoro but I'm not motivated with Kyouko though.. 

[Yuuko]

7 minutes ago, melo4496 said:

There's a high chance for me to read Mana and Kokoro but I'm not motivated with Kyouko though.. 

Yeah Kyouko is a bad girl w

[Kawasumi]

Playing monster girl raising sim by vanadis, as if I didnt have enough VNs going at the same time already >_>.

its not really special or good, but cute monster girls calling you papa was too much to resist.