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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

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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VNs

Random VN: Death End Re;Quest 2

Let's first get this out there... I did not play the original game.  The reasons?  Well, mostly because it was supposedly horribly buggy and I have no patience for bugs and glitches.  The other part was that it didn't sound that interesting to me.  It sounded like an occult take on SAO.  However, I decided when this came out that I would buy it and later play it.  Why?  Because Touyama Mai is a much more interesting protagonist than Shina or Arata. The game begins with Mai being driven to m
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RPG commentary: Growlanser 3

Before I go back to my work, which is going to take the rest of the day to finish, I thought I'd leave yall with a commentary on one of my favorite jrpgs, Growlanser 3. Growlanser 3, released in the US as part of a collection with Growlanser 2, was the final localization done by Working Designs, the company that pioneered independent localization of jrpgs in the US (up until then, most had been localized by Japanese companies or the console first-party company).  It is the prequel to 1 and
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Japanese literature

WN: Ankoku Kishi Monogatari

https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054885318680 This particular WN is one where the protagonist is summoned... by the demon lord to save him from the hero!  The protagonist, Kuroki, becomes a Knight of Darkness and faces off with his trauma - the hero in question - and begins a story of endless misunderstandings and plot twists. That is, in fact, the peculiar flavor of this story.  Over 90% of Ankoku Kishi Monogatari's characters are self-absorbed pricks on some level, with the gods bein
VNs

One more Random Translation: Kerberos

Fall from the heavens, oh my guardian star.  Obliterate everything within the iron abyss. I have served at the side of Hades for many ages.  I am the beastly and arrogant wolf who prays for the fall of all that is bright and noble while easing my hunger with the flesh and blood of the dead. Spit out curses, devour hope, grind the jaws of despair.  The deadly poison that drips from my fangs desperately, oh how desperately desires the collapse of the heavens.  Let the shining brilliance
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Japanese literature

A few WNs

Isekai Tensei ni Kansha wo This is a warmhearted isekai where an elderly gamer with diabetes and other health problems gets reincarnated while playing a full-dive VR game.  In his new youthful body, he sets out to be an adventurer using the skills he purchased at the beginning of the game.  In the process, his kind and wise nature draws in a lot of people and eventually results in his first romantic relationships in his life.   Overall, this story is easygoing and warm-hearted from beg
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Japanese literature

WN: Sairin Yuusha

To be honest, Sairin Yuusha is one of the worst WNs I've ever read.  I kept reading until it cut off because I thought it would eventually get good, but the protagonist is weak and there is never any real progress with the heroine.  The story itself is a revenge story about a hero who is murdered by his own party right before he is about to fight the Demon King.  Thirty years later, he is summoned again and starts on a journey of revenge, forming an alliance with a former demon queen and general
Japanese literature

WN: Shinja Zero no Megami-sama to Hajimeru Isekai Kouryaku

This particular WN series falls into the set called 'transference', as opposed to summoning or reincarnation.  The protagonist, Takatsuki Makoto and his classmates freeze to death in a bus buried in an avalanche, only to wake up in another world, inside the Temple of Water, where it is explained to them that they have been saved by the mercy of that world's gods.  They all receive skills and are more powerful than the natives... except for Makoto, whose status doesn't rise when he levels and onl
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Japanese literature

LN: The Great Cleric (Seija Musou)

Seija Musou, better known as the Great Cleric for its English release (which I haven't read), is an interesting story about an isekai reincarnator who becomes a cleric purely because he wants to die of old age this time around.   In a way, Luciel, the protagonist, is fairly similar to Satou, the protagonist of Death March, in that his goal isn't to save the world but he ends up doing it anyway.  The biggest difference is that Luciel isn't all-powerful (well, at least not until VERY late in
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A long-time Consumer's point of view: Sequels and Fandiscs

One thing I've noticed as a difference between the kind of VN consumer I am now and the one I was at at the beginning is that I fundamentally have difficulty mustering interest in sequels, fandiscs, and even anime continuations of my favorite VNs. When I first started playing VNs, I was your classic fanboy.  If they put out some kind of new story related to a VN I'd enjoyed, I'd snap it up in an instant.  Before I started playing the untranslated, I would obsess over fandiscs and sequels to
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Japanese literature

[Edit] 4 WNs

Niito Dakedo Hello Work ni ittara Isekai ni Tsuretakareta This is a WN by Katsura Kasuga.  An unemployed NEET named Masaru goes to Hello Work (the official Japanese employment agency) and signs a contract for what he thinks is playing a video game, and instead he gets dropped into a world about to be destroyed (or so he is told) and told to test Itou's (apparently that world's god) new skill system for twenty years (incidentally, the amount of time until the end of the world).  If he surviv

AXL: The same characters... but they feel new!!!

AXL is a really weird company.  I don't mean that as an insult.  AXL produces VNs with very little variation in quality, consistently producing stories and characters that are fun to read about...  However, when I take a step back and really think about it, their characters are the same between products, right down to the voices and (to an extent) their appearance. AXL is probably the only VN company out there that hasn't radically changed its visual style in the past ten years... in f
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VN of the Month September delayed and other announcements

September 2017 Releases I'm delaying VN of the Month September 2017 while fun2novel finishes up Farnese.  I honestly don't know when to expect him to be done, but I don't think it will be much more than halfway through the month of November. My schedule for October's releases. October is chock full of first-class releases in appearance... and I'm just going to mention the ones I'm most excited for. Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary (playing this right now... it is terrifyingly good
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VNs

Random Translation: Gilbert vs Valzeride

The video below starts in the middle of a side-story where Valzeride (the antagonist and hero of Silverio Vendetta) confronts Gilbert over his ideals.  They begin to fight because their ideals, while both based on goodness and light, are inherently opposed.  Valzeride ultimately sees himself as inhuman garbage and strives to slay evil and bring happiness to the people of Adler, whereas Gilbert wishes to create a world where people like Valzeride are free of jealousy and judgment of the masses. 
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Random Translation: Silverio Trinity Countdown Video

"I have no regrets whatsoever about the fate I chose, bore, and walked to its end." "The reason is that I had only to but bear the burden alone.  It was a situation where the madman known as Valzeride was the only one that needed to suffer to the end." "If offering up the Monster of Light as a sacrifice would bring my homeland prosperity, then there need be no hesitation.  It truly was a perfect exchange.  As I desired, I ran through the infinite hells to their end." "Believing to
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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
Japanese literature

LN: Chiyu Mahou no Machigatta Tsukaikata, Magan to Dangan o Tsukatte Isekai o Buchinuku, Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute

These three I'm only going to introduce to yall because they were the most memorable of the Web Novels/LNs that I read through in the last month. Chiyu Mahou Chiyu Mahou has the protagonist, Usato Ken, being summoned by accident along with two heroes.  Usato, being a kind-hearted young man to the core, isn't particularly annoyed or angered by this (Kazuki, one of the two heroes is more bothered by it than he is), but he has the misfortune to have a talent for healing magic, meaning he
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Japanese literature

Web Novel: Isekai Buyuuden Kakutou Ou ga Isekai o Iku (and the sequel)

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n8490cj/ https://ncode.syosetu.com/n4499fl/ This series is the latest gem I came across.  It isn't the only one I came across, but I've decided to only present ones that have gone over 200 chapters without getting boring, which is a very small proportion of the web novel population, lol. In this series, Earth's greatest bare-handed fighter, a master of qi and warfare unmatched on our planet, walks through a tunnel to an alternate version of Earth where ma
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Japanese literature

WN: Anata no Tenshoku wa 'Daiyoukai' Desu

This particular WN is the first I've read that isn't another world fantasy or isekai.   The first thing I found myself comparing this to was Devils Devel Concept.  Why?  There are a lot of reasons, but a lot of it is that the protagonist is a monster in human skin and most of the characters remind me of the characters from that VN.   The setting is based six hundred years after the near-destruction of civilization earth due to a massive war (basically WWIII), and humans have the option
Japanese literature

WN: Skill ga Mieta Nidome no Jinsei wa Chouyoyuu, Hatsukoi no Hito to Tanoshiku Sugoshitemasu

https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354055057378382 This is a short and complete series about a guy who dies and is reincarnated in a parallel version of himself, where he could see his status and has a skill that rewards him for repetitive actions.  Generally speaking, this story doesn't really have any complex elements.  The protagonist is something of an idiot about things he isn't interested in while being highly effective at learning and mastering things he does have an interest in.  He does
Japanese literature

WN: Isekai de Skill o Kaitaishitara Chito no Yome ga Zoushokushimashita

To be blunt, this WN is a straight-out slave harem story in another world.  The protagonist is a run-down salaryman who escaped a black company workplace only to end up summoned to a world where the king was raring to put his summoned heroes to work.  Quite naturally, the protagonist wants nothing to do with this, so he arranges to get himself thrown out of the castle and goes off on his own.   The protagonist, like most summoned heroes, has a unique skill (typical of this kind of story). 
Japanese literature

LN: Yondome, Sacchi sarenai Rule Breaker, and Kuro no Maou

Yondome wa Iyana Shizokusei Majutsushi Yondome is a series that would probably be traumatic to watch but is ideal for reading.  I say this because the things done to the protagonist and he does to others are pretty horrifying from an objective perspective.  He spends most of his first reincarnation being tortured as an experimental subject, his magical energy drawn out to make convenient tools, and his second reincarnation has him cursed and living his life surrounded by undead of his own m
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Japanese literature

WN: Cheat Majutsu de Unmei o Nejifuseru

To be honest, this is probably the best of the last six WNs I've read in the last month.  It is also complete.  This one is a 'same world, different protagonist' story from the same world as Elf Tensei kara no Cheat Kenkokuki, and the protagonist of that one is the father one of the two heroines.  However, even if you haven't read the first story, this one stands on its own quite well. The protagonist, Souji, was a player of a game on Earth that was insanely realistic, with time compression
Japanese literature

WN: Mezametara Saikyou Soubi to Uchuusen mochi datta nanode

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3581fh/ This series is the odd one out of my recent reviews.  That is because it is a sci-fi story that contains a bit of Cowboy Bebop, a bit of Outlaw Star, and even a small dose of Tenchi Muyo(albeit a weak version with less mystic elements).  The protagonist, Hiro, wakes up in the cockpit of his ship Krishna from the game he had been playing for the past few years.  He has no memory of how it came to that, and his ship is floating around a random asteroid in a
Japanese literature

LN: Yaritsukai to Kuroneko

To be clear, I haven't finished this particular WN series (at over 900 chapters, all of them of reasonable length, that would take a long time).  I have gotten around halfway through the story, enough to get a solid impression of how this is going to go.  Like most of the LNs/WNs I have been reading lately, it is an isekai story.  This particular story has a different approach compared to the ones I've posted about so far.  First, this story doesn't have a specific antagonist or group of antagon
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