Nekonyan Retrospective | The Moege Specialist Visual Novel Publisher

[NowItsAngeTime]

As the resident official translator of many popular moege, are Nekonyan  deserving of their high praise? Find out in this documentary-like retrospective video. 

 

 

[littleshogun]

One again here's my very belated comment on this matter.

Well if you want my answer on the question 'are Nekonyan deserving of their high praise?', then honestly speaking I agree they have several flaws despite they're the better one when it come to bring the big title. The first one is obviously the bugs, which is quite often so much it become meme at their Discord, although to their credit it happened mostly in the games with the engine that need to be ported (And they always took the quick actions to fixed it). Ideally speaking it would be better to do more thorough job to make sure the works are free of bugs, although obviously it could delay the releases for some unknown times. For the complain in regard of translation choice, let's just say that each people have their own preference. That said, even most people has limit with the translation choice, as shown with 'Incel Removal Patch' release when Royale was released.

For their recent catalogue, compared to Shiravune they seems to be not increased much, with the newer one are Irotoridori, Aoi Tori, and now Hatsuyuki Sakura (Hatsusaku), although those are definitely very interesting title, especially Hatsusaku. Nekonyan also has very personal history with Irotoridori, with them initially formed this as Shinku Translation in order to express their love for the main heroine, Shinku, and have their very first project Saku Saku which was released by Sekai (So in a way Saku Saku is technically Nekonyan's very first project instead of Fureraba). Anyway, while both have different methods, in the end currently both are the best companies when it come to the VN catalogues alone, at least for the first half of 2020's and I hope they'll keep it up in the upcoming years.

For their store, well admittedly it's quite suck to see them stopped doing so, although looking from how Sol Press tried to set up their own store perhaps it's for the best Nekonyan put their store aside for time being. Speaking of Sol Press, they rescued four licenses from them, the aforementioned Irotoridori (Which is also personal for Nekonyan), Onikiss, Mirai Radio, and now Sakura Celebration with they need to delay the release because apparently they need to do some major fixing. While there's no much to explore when it come to Tinkle Position and Laplacian (Nekonyan already took Onigyu license and Laplacian already moved on to become all age company), I think Nekonyan may have the chance to acquired two more Sol Press licenses, HHG and Witch's Garden, with both are developed by Windmill (Sakura Celebration developer).

I agree they have the best relationship with Yuzusoft, especially with they even manage to translate the 4-koma videos for both of Cafe Stella and Tenshi Re-Boot (It's suck on how Steam rejected Tenshi Re-Boot for some unfathomable reasons). Other than Yuzusoft, Hooksoft is the closest companies to Nekonyan, although it only apply to two of their branches, Smee (HaremKingdom license aside) and ASa Project. Saga Planets also seems to getting closer with Nekonyan, especially with the releases both of Kakenuke and Hatsusaku with the latter was stated to be under Visual Arts. For more context, after quitting Visual Arts Saga Planets only own the licenses starting from Floral Flowlove (FF), so no one expect Hatsusaku to be licensed despite it's one of most known VN from them. Anyway, with Saga Planets big title available in English (FF aside), obviously the next license that Nekonyan can take is Ambitious Mission. It would be nice if Nekonyan can get Natsuyume Nagisa as well, although since it's 2009 VN it would took Nekonyan to negotiate with Visual Arts again and would need more works than up-scaling the arts alone seeing the game is in 800x600 resolution.

Lastly, while they didn't manage to do no Kickstarter, at least they only done two of it with both are only for physical releases with the total goal was at 15,000 euro (10,000 euro for Aokana and 5,000 euro for Kirikoi, which is definitely smaller than 85,000 dollars Irotoridori even with different currency), and it seems they manage to deliver it to the most of the backers. As for the smaller controversies like Hello Lady with mosaic, it's not always possible to get the new person in charge to be in line with what Nekonyan asked for with the new person was vetoed Nekonyan's wish to have Hello Lady sex scenes arts with no mosaic. For the reminder Nekonyan usually tried to have no mosaic in their releases, with the exception is Yuzusoft who insist to have keep the mosaic, which didn't stop their VNs (Particularly Senren Banka) become the best selling VNs anyway.

That's all for what I can comment in regard of Nekonyan.

PS - For more a bit correction, actually Sekai was initially the one who got Dracu Riot along with Senren Banka, although since turned out Sekai have too many project at their hand Nekonyan got the chance to negotiate with Yuzusoft to acquired those titles, and here we are with Senren Banka was manage to be very successful release for Nekonyan.

Edited December 30, 2024 by littleshogun