[Studio Frisay] Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete Translation Project

[Tooko]

Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
(In Search of the Lost Future)

Description

At Uchihama Academy, the number of new students at the school has been increasing every year, so a new school building is constructed. Before they move to the new building, the school will hold one last cultural festival at the old building before it is closed down. Each of the clubs decide to give it their all to make it a success. The student council asks the astronomy club to calm the uneasiness among the students in regard to mysterious incidents at the old building. Sou Akiyama, a member of the astronomy club, is inspecting the old building when he finds a mysterious naked girl, Yui Furukawa, who appears to know him. The next day, Yui expresses her desire to join the astronomy club.
          (Description taken partially from VNDB and Wikipedia.)
VNDB link: https://vndb.org/v4880

Where to purchase

The game can be purchased legally from DMM (https://dlsoft.dmm.co.jp/detail/tin_0002/), but a Japanese proxy/VPN may be necessary to purchase it. In addition, there's an extra layer of DRM which requires the installation of the DMM Game Player software which then allows you to download and install the game. A Japanese VPN is necessary to use DMM Game Player, both to download the game once purchased, and also to launch the game, although once launched the VPN can be turned off. This is the copy I have obtained, but the patch will work with both the DMM version and the original disc version released in 2010, although the only difference will be in their encryption and the addition of one extra file to get the disc version to work on modern systems.

Project

The English localization project is being conducted by Studio Frisay as its third project following Imasugu Onii-chan ni Imouto datte Iitai! in 2022 and H2O √ after and another Complete Story Edition in 2023. As before, I (Tooko) will be doing all of the translating and editing of the script, along with probably most of the image editing, and working on the game engine. Also as before, nReus has agreed to help with the rendering of the game's videos and also some of the image editing (you can largely thank him for the design of the logo above).

Studio Frisay discord server

Progress

Programming: The game uses the Kirikiri engine, one of the most popular and versatile engines around. I've already taken care of the preliminary engine hacks necessary to construct the patch after a lot of trial and error, and also received some help to streamline the patch creation process once the project is complete.

Translation: The translation took place between January 19 and August 10, 2024, and I had already translated about 25% of the script by the time I announced the project in March. The game has 35,416 lines across 180 scenario files split up between the five heroine routes:

Kaori: 8519 / 8519: 100%
Airi: 7368 / 7368: 100%
Nagisa: 7356 / 7356: 100%
Yui 1: 8334 / 8334: 100%
Yui 2: 3839 / 3839: 100%
Total: 35416 / 35416: 100%

Relatively uncommon for this type of game, it doesn't have a separate common route and instead incorporates elements similar to a common route into the beginning of each route. There is also a set order the routes must be completed, which is the same order they're listed above. A full walkthrough will be provided with the patch to view all CGs and endings.

Images and videos: Of the 150 or so images that require editing in the game, almost all of them (134) are part of the UI, so it probably shouldn't take that long to finish them up. As for the videos, there are 4: 2 for the OP and 2 for the ED that will require typesetting for the lyrics and a few lines of other text. The images and videos are being edited by nReus.

Editing: Editing the script began on August 13, 2024 and concluded on February 12, 2025. Image and video editing are still ongoing.

Progress link on Google Sheets

Edited Thursday at 07:55 AM by Tooko
Update

[littleshogun]

So Ushieta as your next project I see. I remember there's someone who worked hard on this VN with he keep telling his regular updates before he vanished with the unfinished project. As for the VN itself, the graphic is looking good even now, although story wise it's closer to charage/moege. Good luck on the project, and I'll try to keep my eyes on this project just like the older one.

[Erogamer]

Wait what?! Is this for real?? I never thought this would be translated, or even an attempt at it. I read this and watched the anime. The VN obviously was better and had more detail. Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete was decent, and had some emotional parts to it. It also had some pretty good H scenes haha. It did keep my interest when I read it. I am sure some will find it a very enjoyable ride.  At any rate, good luck to your team at giving us who are not polyglots something to read. Oh, and I have already bought this. Sadly the dev no longer exists to support.

Edited March 9, 2024 by Erogamer

[Tooko]

About a month later, and now another arc is complete, this time with Airi. That brings the current total to about 45% complete for the entire script. Although there's still about 20,000 lines to go, it always feels better once I get over the 50% mark, which I should hit sometime next week in Nagisa's arc. Funnily enough, Nagisa's arc is almost exactly the same size as Airi's, even down to the amount of text itself, with only 482 characters separating them. Both arcs were written by the same author, Saitou Kenji, so that may have had something to do with it. So I'll get back to working on it and have another update next month.

Edited April 4, 2024 by Tooko

[littleshogun]

Congratulation on finishing Airi's route, which to say is quite big step up compared to the past project because I did search my past VNTS Review and then found out the old translator stuck at Airi's route with overall is at 35% translated. Good luck with your work on Nagisa's route.

Edited April 7, 2024 by littleshogun

[Tooko]

It took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but now Nagisa's arc is finally complete, bringing the total script to just about 66% complete. Her arc in particular has 3 lengthy H scenes all in a row right at the very end, so that was partially the reason that it took me a bit longer. But anyway, there are just about 12,000 lines left, and it all revolves around Yui split into two parts, Yui 1 and Yui 2. I'm still hoping to get the translation done by no later than July, so it shouldn't be that long before I get into editing the images and then the script. So I'll probably have another update next month sometime as we approach the grand finale.

[littleshogun]

Congratulation on finishing Nagisa's route, and good luck on Yui's route which is very obvious that she is the main heroine of Ushieta.

[Nier]

I love the work you have done for Imasugu Onii-chan and especially H2O (since I was really hoping someone would translate this game one day as I loved Sakura no Uta and Subarashiki Hibi), so good luck on this new project!

[Tooko]

It took almost 2 weeks longer than I had originally hoped, but now the translation is finally complete after nearly 7 months of working on it. Granted, I had taken a more leisurely approach to the translation this time compared to when I did Imaimo and H2O, but I feel I still managed to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Suffice it to say, I'm relieved the biggest and most tedious portion of the patch process is now done so I can now move on to editing the game's images, of which almost all that require editing are for the UI, so not that bad really in comparison to the previous two projects. It always feels wonderful when the UI gets done because it feels like an official localization, which is generally what I'm striving for each time I've worked on these projects to make playing the game as seamless and enjoyable as possible.

Anyway, in the meantime while I'm working on the images, I'd also like to point out that the game is currently 50% off on DMM for the next two days, and if possible, please consider buying the game. So, I'll be back for another update either this or next month.

Edited August 11, 2024 by Tooko

[littleshogun]

I see that you're now finished with Ushieta translation works, so congratulation on that. Well, no much to say besides good luck on the image editing work later on.

[Nier]

On 8/11/2024 at 10:50 AM, Tooko said:

Anyway, in the meantime while I'm working on the images, I'd also like to point out that the game is currently 50% off on DMM for the next two days, and if possible, please consider buying the game. So, I'll be back for another update either this or next month.

Damn looks like I missed it, it's now listed as being 7480 Yen.

Do you know if there is a DMM Price Tracker that sends you email whenever DMM lowers the price of the games?

Edited August 15, 2024 by Nier

[Novel21]

How are things going with this translation? it seems it have not been any progress for weeks or months.

[littleshogun]

As for the progress, I believe the translator most likely have real life business, so it would be better to just wait and see until he has some times to give the update.

Edited December 6, 2024 by littleshogun

[Rolly]

Damn I really hoped this would get translated one day.. I wonder what happened to the translator 

[Clephas]

7 hours ago, Rolly said:

Damn I really hoped this would get translated one day.. I wonder what happened to the translator 

Real life or burn-out, most likely.  

[Tooko]

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates since October. I had to pause the project for a bit, but it is still very much alive and I have been making steady progress on it recently, even finishing the editing for Airi's arc and I'm about a third of the way through Nagisa's arc currently, with 51% of the script edited. I will be aiming to complete the editing process before the end of next month, and then the QC process will begin. So at this point in time, I believe a release of the full patch by sometime in March is very doable and is a goal I plan on achieving, especially considering the extended break over the last few months. I'll be aiming to make some more frequent updates as I complete the editing for each arc in the coming weeks.

[littleshogun]

Honestly speaking I start to worry about the long silence, although now that you finally give the updates all was well. That said, no much to say here other than good luck on finishing the remaining half of the editing work.

[Kirashi]

Sorry if that has already be asked why is there 2 Yui ?

[Erogamer]

Will you have a poll for your next project? Might I suggest Astraythem? Probably Chuable's best release which is very dramatic and also has time travel in it.

[Tooko]

On 1/23/2025 at 11:41 AM, Kirashi said:

Sorry if that has already be asked why is there 2 Yui ?

Yui 2 is the true ending and directly continues from Yui 1 storywise. Since it also focuses on Yui, I just called it Yui 2 for simplicity.

On 1/23/2025 at 4:10 PM, Erogamer said:

Will you have a poll for your next project? Might I suggest Astraythem? Probably Chuable's best release which is very dramatic and also has time travel in it.

No poll, only because (if there is going to be a next project) it would have to be something I would already be interested in working on, considering how much time and effort goes into producing these patches. You're still free to make suggestions if you want, since there could be some game out there I'm not aware of that I could deem worthwhile to do a patch for at some point. For now, I'm just trying to focus on getting this patch out.

[Tooko]

And now with the editing of Nagisa's arc complete, the script is about 66% of the way done with about 12K lines left to go. Not much else to say other than I appreciate the comments and encouragement to finish this project. It's already been a year since this project began and I'm looking forward to sharing it with others.

[Novel21]

I'm so excited for this VN and I'm really looking forward to March so I can play it. 

Thank you for still working on this project and you are doing very good job. 

[Kirashi]

On 1/25/2025 at 2:57 AM, Tooko said:

No poll, only because (if there is going to be a next project) it would have to be something I would already be interested in working on, considering how much time and effort goes into producing these patches. You're still free to make suggestions if you want, since there could be some game out there I'm not aware of that I could deem worthwhile to do a patch for at some point. For now, I'm just trying to focus on getting this patch out.

Can I ask if you are soing fine? I mean, no burn out? We are all very grateful for the great work but I am a bit scared how much this project and all the others should have impacted you irl (in time and energy) during all those years.

I thought for a long time this project was cursed, but it seems like you'll break it. Thank you.

Edited January 28 by Kirashi

[Tooko]

On 1/27/2025 at 7:38 PM, Kirashi said:

Can I ask if you are soing fine? I mean, no burn out? We are all very grateful for the great work but I am a bit scared how much this project and all the others should have impacted you irl (in time and energy) during all those years.

I thought for a long time this project was cursed, but it seems like you'll break it. Thank you.

I won't lie. Burn out is a very really thing, and I believe is the main reason why most VN fan translation patches never see the light of day. But that's something that should almost entirely encompass the translation itself, since (from having already worked on two previous projects) that's the most tedious process, especially if the script is very long. But since I edit my own translations, I am constantly editing as I translate, which makes that process take even longer, in addition to what I'm doing now which is editing the entire script for consistency, typo/grammar fixes, checking translation accuracy, etc. I've been doing stuff like this for a long, long time (even before Studio Frisay was a thing), so I would say I'm used to it, but that doesn't make it any less of a thing I have to put a lot of dedication into. I do it as a hobby, but I still want to put out the best product possible. Sometimes, time off from a project is necessary to finally complete it. And I can say this, once the translation was completed last year, there was no way I wasn't going to see this patch to completion eventually.

On a lighter note, everything surrounding Trumple seems to be cursed in general, seeing as how the studio only produced this one game almost 15 years ago. But I'm glad that the game still lives on currently, and will pretty soon live on in English, too.

Edited February 2 by Tooko

[Tooko]

I'm now done with editing the first Yui arc at 89% complete with the whole script, and less than 4,000 lines left to check in the final arc, which shouldn't take that long hopefully. Finishing up the editing of the images will then be the next priority so a beta patch can be compiled and tested.