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About this blog

This is a blog primarily focusing on but not limited to VNs.  It is primarily designed to express my opinion on otaku media (jrpgs, anime, manga, LNs, VNs, etc), individual VNs, and otaku community issues.   Most of the posts are related to my VN of the Month and Random VN columns, originally started in threads in the forums. 

As of March of 2017, I'm also looking for people to help with VN of the Month.

Entries in this blog

Tsumi no Hikari Rendezvous

Since I finished getting the acidic, poisonous, and unreasoning emotions out of my system - see this post: I was able to get through this VN without a lot of pain and twisted emotion such as I experienced with Soreyori no Prologue.  First, this is a VN that people who prefer moege/charage will not like.  I say this because, despite the high-quality visuals, this is - like most of Minori's more recent VNs - just a few steps too far in the direction of 'down in the mud romance dram
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Trinoline

Written by Kiririri and edited by fun2novel  and Me Trinoline If there ever was a time when the quality of a story was judged purely on its aesthetics then minori’s games would be tough opponents to defeat. Trinoline continues in the same tradition as many other minori games. High-budget top-quality visuals with a ridiculous level of attention to details. This includes blinking eyes and well done lip syncing, top-notch high quality CGs, and unusual camera angles, where you walk a
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Traveling Stars part 2: Finn and Rea

Finn Finn is an angel who is also an oracle for the god of the other world where all the non-humans live. In the story, she has basically been told to 'go to the human world and learn', and she is a total innocent who is incapable of acting on her own. Her main draw as a character is the way she attaches herself at the hip to the protagonist almost from the beginning and her generally straightforward and innocent reactions to anything and everything. Her path is a simple one, with a really ob
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Traveling Stars Part 1: Common and Chloe

Now... this is a VN by Hooksoft. Hooksoft is a company known for its 'sweet' stories, with lots of moe, decent (occasionally straying into excellent) character development, and lots of heroines. This is their first trip into fantasy, and from what I've seen so far, it looks like they did a better job than some companies tend to do with this kind of thing, though the character types are universally standard Hook Soft heroines (I can see echoes of previous heroines from their games in all of the
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Traveling Stars End: Zirconia, Miisha, and Pascal

Zirconia Zirconia is the protagonist's elven 'oneechan', who basically took care of him while he was in the other world... and who raised him like Hikari Genji in the Genji Monogatari to be her ideal man. She is probably the most straight-out hilarious heroine in the game, because she even goes so far as to lock the door whenever they are alone in a room, has a dakimakura of the protagonist, and her favorite pastime is having daydreams about the protagonist... Her path is easily the most co
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Toxic Tropes: The Childhood Promise, the easygoing osananajimi relationship

I decided to start a series covering certain tropes I consider to be generally toxic for various reasons.  These tropes are not character archetypes (which I will probably make a different series of posts about later), just to let you know. This time, I want to cover the childhood promise, and easygoing relationships with osananajimi heroines. The Childhood Promise Perhaps one of the most prolifically used tropes in charage in particular and VNs in general, the childhood promise i
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Tou no Shita no Exercitus part 1: So far

First, I should describe Astronauts, the mother company that created this VN. Astronauts produces a wide variety of VNs done in its own unique art style. Most are halfway to a nukige without quite going there, and about a third of them are gameplay VNs like this one. Since their VNs vary so wildly between subsidiaries and even just between games, the art-style is pretty much the only common thread.   Exercitus is reusing the base card-battle system from Astronauts' previous card-based battle
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Tou no Shita no Exercitus final: An overall impression and VN of the Month

Tou no Shita no Exercitus, as I mentioned in the previous post, pretty much eliminates most of the problems that Verethragna had in terms of the card combat system, in exchange for a loss of any real challenge, outside of the last boss and a few others along the way. That impression didn't change throughout my experience of the last few chapters of the game, so at this point, I won't bother rehashing that explanation.   More importantly, I thought I should mention that this VN doesn't commit th
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Top Ten VN/Anime/video game villains/antagonists

In action stories, often the story's quality is determined by the quality of the antagonist as much as the quality of the main characters.  The antagonist acts and the main characters react, creating the drama that pulls at our heart strings and excites us.  The more complex the story, the more likely the need for a strong antagonist will exist, at least in modern fiction.  I decided to put down my top ten and my reasons for making them my top ten here.  These are my top ten, but there isn't a p
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Tokyo Necro

OK, first I am going to avoid spoilers throughout this review, so I would like those who want to comment to avoid the same, even in spoiler boxes.  This is one of those games that is going to be harder to enjoy if you spoil it for those who come after, so I will personally eat anyone who spoils it.  This VN is by the same writer who did Sumaga (blech), Gekkou no Carnevale (yay), and Totono (a VN a lot of people here liked).  However, the style of story is much closer to that of Gekkou no Carneva
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Tokyo Babel

Tokyo Babel is scheduled to be released pretty soon, so I decided to replay it.  As Propeller is one of my favorite companies and Tokyo Babel has a more or less permanent place in my top fifty (when the number of VNs you've played passes five hundred, fifty is a good place to be, lol), so this doesn't bother me.  Tokyo Babel is one of the few purely all-ages titles from Japan on the PC, and it is a chuunige of rare quality that was obviously written with one of a dozen or so pairs of eyes on Mas
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Tokubetsu na Bonjin no Seikatsu

No, the title isn't the name of a VN... at least as far as I know.  It essentially means 'the lifestyle of a special normal/average person'.  This is the wording that came to mind when I thought about the standard charage protagonist... Now, slice-of-life is by nature just that... a slice of the characters' lives outside of whatever conflict or set of events that determines the flow of the story.  There are slice-of-life moments in almost all VNs (except for a few sex-only nukige, mahou sho
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Toki ga Tsumugu Yakusoku Part 3: Final thoughts

First, I should comment on Misaki's route... As is to be expected of a true route in a VN with as much story as this one, Misaki's route is incomparable in both length and content to the other three routes.  In terms of emotional impact, it literally leaves the other routes in the dust, while finishing off the other heroines' issues almost as if they were a mere aside, lol.  That said, not all the emotions associated with this route are positive... there are some seriously heartbreaking mom
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Toki ga Tsumugu Yakusoku part 2: Based on a few routes

I'm definitely going to have really, seriously mixed feelings on this VN when it is done.  The problems with the common route still apply, but some of the heroine routes make up for the problem.  I'm not going to say this is going to be another Tasogare no Sinsemilla... that possibility never even really existed.   For better or worse, this VN has serious pacing issues near the beginning (yes, the heroine routes are longer than the common route), and the difference between even the non-true hero
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Toki ga Tsumugu Yakusoku part 1: Some thoughts based on the common route EDITED

First, I should say that this starts out like a first-class nakige in classic non-Key style (which means no loli heroines with weird speech patterns and less than six heroines total, lol).  I generally am fond of Applique for giving me Tasogare no Sinsemilla and the Arcology series, but when they screw up, it is usually in a way that should have been blatantly obvious as they were doing it. The protagonist and his daughter (yes, his daughter) are a great combo, and their past is one of one
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Tiny Dungeon Brave or Slave

Beware of Wandering Maids   This is the fourth and final VN of the TIny Dungeon main series (see: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-727-tiny-dungeon-black-and-white/ http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-747-tiny-dungeon-bless-of-dragon/ http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-749-tiny-dungeon-birth-for-yours/ for the rest of the series so far). It also serves as a conclusion to the story that began with the first one (though Endless Dungeon is basically the actual ending of t
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Tiny Dungeon Bless of Dragon

Bless of Dragon is the second VN in the Tiny Dungeon series (see http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-727-tiny-dungeon-black-and-white/ for my comments on Black and White). The picture above is of Fon, who is one of this VN's two side-heroines (Opera the maid is the other). She is a half-dragon, half-demon girl with her own major issues that come out into the open in this VN, which is focused on Ururu Kajuta, the loli-dragon princess.   Ururu is technically what would be called a 'loli-bab
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Tiny Dungeon Black and White

First, I’ll say a few words about the Tiny Dungeon series. This series is made up of five games (if you include Endless Dungeon, which is a sequel/canon ending that brings a conclusion to the post-Brave and Slave events). The first three VNs are each focused on one of the three main heroines… Veil Sein, Ururu Kajuta, and Note Ruum. The fourth VN – Brave or Slave – brings an end to the story began in Black and White, and the fifth – Endless Dungeon – is a final conclusion and after-story for t
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Tiny Dungeon Birth for Yours

This is the third VN in the Tiny Dungeon series (see: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-727-tiny-dungeon-black-and-white/ and http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blog/46/entry-747-tiny-dungeon-bless-of-dragon/ for the first two). This one is focused on Note Ruum.   Note Ruum's secret you will already know from Black and White (it is central to the drama near the end), but I will refrain from revealing it anyway. She is the First Princess of the Divine World, as well as being the 'Grand Luna'
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Thoughts on Tokyo Babel (a summary after my fifth playthrough)

First, as I state in the title, I'm coming off my fifth playthrough (all paths and endings) of Tokyo Babel.  As such, I am - very obviously - deeply fond of the game.  I'm also a fan of the writer Higashide Yuuichirou (for reference, he also wrote Ayakashibito and the scenario for Fate/Apocrypha).  However, in this post I wanted to address some of the complaints I get from those who play the game.  First, I will address the major complaints I've taken personally from those who read or have
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Thoughts on the Cipher protagonist in VNs

First, let me state what I mean by a 'cipher' protagonist.  A protagonist of this type is basically a painted-on personality who serves solely to interpret the events for you, serving as your 'eyes' and 'ears'.  A protagonist like this is most likely passive and/or reactive in relation to heroines outside of sex/romance and tends to 'go with the flow' most of the time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  If the protagonist isn't really part of the story, making them into a cipher isn't a b
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Third Book Post: LE Modesitt, Jr

I'm doing a spotlight on this author for a number of reasons... one is that I'm currently going back through his works on my new Kindle (lol), but another is that I have never really understood until recently just how profound an effect his works have had on my thinking until I had the opportunity go back and marathon some of his series. Modesitt has been writing since 1982 (the year I was born, incidentally) and has a massive number of works to look at (seventy novels across a number of se
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The worst and most poorly-used Tropes in VNs

I've raved on tropes before.  Many times.  However, as I have also said many times before, tropes and stereotypes do have an important place in fiction of all sorts.  The important part is to balance the use of tropes to create something interesting and unique, rather than just using them to copy a previous work or works. 1.  The 'standardized' voiceless protagonist- For better or worse, there was a long period of time when VN protagonists outside of chuunige were forbidden by industry cust
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The Value of Catharsis

For those who read my reviews, you will have probably heard me refer to catharsis as a positive element in VNs.  I push catharsis like it is the best new designer drug on the market I'm dealing and you are my customers.  So... the question that occurred to me recently was, what is the meaning and value of catharsis? First, while the strict dictionary definition of catharsis in literature refers to a emotional, moral, and spiritual release or cleansing, I can honestly say that the word as I
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Japanese literature

The Ups and Downs of Web Novels and Light Novels

I'll go ahead and begin with an intro to my current experience with Light Novels and Web Novels in Japanese.  For the last two years, I've been reading them at a rate of 60-100 chapters a day (faster in the case of below-average size chapters).  I primarily read fantasy with a side of science fiction (no, not just isekai, though I love isekai).  This isn't hard, because fantasy and science fiction make up over three-quarters of all the LNs and Web Novels out there.  This is a bit ironic to my ey
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