I suppose we can say that 2021 here is the continuation of 2020 in that we're still in the middle of the pandemic, although there's a lot of vaccination right now. Of course, it won't stop the releases of the translated VNs, and it's nice to see that JAST is very aggressive regarding the release in 2021, so much so that it can rival both Mangagamer and Sekai for yearly release numbers. With that done, let's see which translated VNs I chose as the best-rated ones in 2021. I'm sorry if some of your favorites are not here, so you may disagree with my choice because I may be subjective. Lastly, the scores and rank can fluctuate in the future, and for the reminder, the scores are the VNDB score for each VN as of today (April 8th, 2024).

Before I go with the best-rated translated VNs, I'll write the honorable mentions for 2021 here. The honorable mentions are Onigokko (VNDB 7.16), Parquet (VNDB 7.13), and Ninki Seiyuu no Tsukurikata (VNDB 7.27). That's all for the honorable mentions of 2021.

10. Ren'ai Karichaimashita (VNDB 7.28)

If you look at Sankaku Ren'ai (developed by the same company and localized by Nekonyan), you know what to expect from Karichaimashita here. As a reminder, it's the comedy with a love triangle that's not as dramatic as White Album 2 (WA2), and we'll have it here. Karichaimashita is about our MC, Yuki, who keeps thinking about how money is the only thing that makes his little sister happy, thanks to his family's unique circumstances that forced Yuki to be the family's breadwinner. So, of course, he'll keep working for money if his sister can be happy, so much so that he calls himself having a Sister Complex. One day, Yuki saw a job advertisement for a company that allows clients to have fake relationships; the job is quite common in Japan, as shown in the infamous Kanojo Okarishimasu manga. While the job is highly suspicious, Yuki decides to apply anyway since it offers the high pay he desperately needs. Little did he know back then that he would keep involved with the clients, which in turn allowed him to start a relationship with one of the clients, and here we're going to have four and a half routes because, while technically there are five heroines, two of those heroines are the twin who's sharing Yuki.

9. Primal x Hearts (VNDB 7.40)

Shiravune released several interesting visual novels in 2021, one of those VNs being Marmalade's Primal Hearts series. While it's inevitable because we also have Study Steady (another Marmalade VN) localized by them, it's still nice to see they license the Primal Hearts series. The series features a school with two student councils and an even number of students, thus ensuring a deadlock situation every time a vote happens. The MC's role in the series is as the hope to break the deadlock because he's the 777th student, hence his Three Sevens nickname. So, both councils inevitably approach the MC to persuade him to join one of the councils to have whichever side has the MC win the future votes. While I understand that the second Primal Hearts here has received some improvements, I list the first one here because the Primal Hearts series reminds me of the Lunar series, with both Lunar and Primal Hearts developers improving their second game. So the first Primal Hearts here should make a nice parallel with the first Lunar, and I know it's quite a stretch to compare Lunar and Primal Hearts, seeing that both series have a lot of differences anyway.

8. Sugar * Style (VNDB 7.44)

Compared to other translated Smee VNs (HaremKingdom and Making Lovers) with unique MCs, Sugar Style here didn't have the MC become a king in a different world or already be working. But instead, our MC has just started his college life. For the premise, we have Kazuki (MC's default name), whose parents fled and left him with debts while also being deceived by an evil woman. So, after a string of bad luck, he turns the page by entering the college with the dormitory, which his cousin manages, only to find out that the dormitory is for females. Then Kazuki accidentally stumbles into a perverted situation. Thus, his relationship with the female residents, the heroines, has a rocky start. However, as per Smee VN, Kazuki will gradually get closer to the heroines. He'll then enter a relationship with one of the four heroines in the original version (which Nekonyan localized) and with the two additional heroines, including Kazuki's cousin, in the untranslated console version (that does not have sex scenes). Like other Smee VNs, besides obviously still having the usual comedy, it also has a mini fan disc, but we don't know if Nekonyan will localize it.

7. Dohna Dohna -Issho ni Warui Koto o Shiyou- (VNDB 7.88)

After Shiravune brought the Primal Hearts series in July 2021, we have Dohna Dohna as another exciting license released by them in October 2021. Dohna Dohna, as in the latest gameplay VN by Alicesoft, which, as we know, is attempting to localize Evenicle 2 on their own (so perhaps Shiravune will localize Evenicle 2 later), as well as having a partnership with Mangagamer to localize the Rance series. For Dohna Dohna itself, while the graphic style resembles Persona 5, the story is more similar to FF7. In the story of Dohna Dohna, it has an outlaw group that lives in a city tightly controlled by a massive corporation. The group does everything it can, including robbing the facility related to the corporation, to fight them. While we usually think that the group is in the right, in this case, we can't exactly say that the group is better than the corporation morally because we have the group kidnapping several women to sell them as prostitutes to get money. Finally, while the graphics are quite colorful, it should go without saying that the content is quite dark, especially with the already mentioned prostitute and some disturbing sex scenes in the Bad Endings.

6. Rance Quest (VNDB 7.93)

After some time of waiting (11 years for the ones who play fan translations of Sengoku Rance and 17 months for the ones who play the Mangagamer version), we finally have Rance Quest released in English. As for the story, after Rance encountered a problem in Sengoku Rance, he decided to find a way to resolve his situation. Of course, Rance being Rance, his inability to control his libido caused trouble, and he's been struck with a curse by a woman with whom he had sex. Said curse renders any woman who has sex with Rance weakened, as well as making Rance not able to have sex with weaker women, so there will be many restrictions on Rance's having sex. Facing the situation, rather than trying to find a way to remove the curse quickly, Rance decided to enjoy his life as much as possible. Of course, he'll do so by searching for many strong women so that he can have sex with them. Rance Quest is the eighth part of the Rance series that Alicesoft developed, and Quest here is a breather episode with Rance doing a lot of quests that resemble the old RPG (hence the word "Quest") with him recruiting a lot of characters (up to 72) to join his adventure.

5. Musicus (VNDB 8.00)

When Overdrive worked on this VN, which was planned as their last VN before they went with the Virtual Youtuber stuff, they found themselves without enough funds to develop the VN. And so they did the crowdfund to get the funds, with the result that they managed to gather 130 million yen. According to what I've seen, Musicus has been well received, with some calling it a thought-provoking VN if we borrow the late Conjueror's word, though whether that's true is up to each person. But I know for sure that we have Kei, who is currently in a dilemma regarding his future after encountering the difficulties of becoming a doctor like his father. Of course, as per Overdrive MC, Kei finds himself drawn to the music after watching a concert. From there, he does his best to perform in a band after being suggested by a band leader. Unlike the writer's previous Overdrive VN, which also focused on the music band (Kira Kira), in this one, the writer shows what would happen if one made a band for a living, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. Since Musicus didn't have an opening, I'll use the ending credit of Yako's route for the video below.

4. Kin'iro Loveriche (VNDB 8.20)

Kini'iro Loveriche, aka Kinkoi, is the first translated Saga Planet VN that Nekonyan localized. With that, we finally have Saga Planet VN translated, which defies people's belief that it's impossible to see it happen, especially with several failed Saga Planet VN translation projects we've had in the past (Hanasaki Work Spring, Hatsuyuki Sakura). As for Kinkoi, the premise here is that Ouro carried Princess Sylvie (her full name is too long) in Princess Carry (how appropriate), which obviously would alert her bodyguards because it made Ouro look like he had kidnapped the princess. Since Ouro himself caught Sylvie's attention, she had arranged for Ouro to attend the school with her. While the premise suggested that this is just a comedy VN with rich people as heroines, it turned out that there's more to Kinkoi than meets the eye, particularly regarding the story of one of the heroines. The VN also has a fan disc, Golden Time, with two routes for the side heroines, after stories for each heroine (including the side one), and an alternate ending for a specific heroine. Just in case you're asking if the fan disc will be licensed or not, Nekonyan has already licensed it, and so far, the translation work on it is going pretty well.

3. 9 -Nine- Yukiiro Yukihana Yukinoato (VNDB 8.60)

I said the serial release is not ideal for releasing a VN. But after I read one of the reviews about Nine, perhaps going serial here is the best way to make the writer, Kazuki Fumi, build up the story arc because not all writers can make the complete story arc from the beginning. That said, I'm still not a fan of serial release. In Episode 4, after Kakeru gets close to the other heroines, Miyako, Sora, and Haruka, in the previous episodes while investigating the incidents in the city, this time Kakeru gets close to Noa. More importantly, Kakeru finally confronts a person who's been causing the incidents after getting some help from an unexpected fellow. While there's Shinshou, aka New Episode, which is said to be the sequel to Episode 4, the New Episode is more like the fan disc than the sequel. The New Episode contents are the after stories for the heroines with some wrap-up for the story, so Episode 4 here is the grand finale for the Nine series itself. Izumi Tsubasu is still in charge of the design, so we still have her beautiful drawings. Sekai did well on this by releasing four episodes of Nine within two years, contrasting with when they needed three years to release two VN of the ReLord trilogy.

2. Soukou Akki Muramasa (VNDB 8.91)

We knew JAST got the license for Muramasa back in 2012 when one of TLWiki's users, Makoto, became the translator for JAST. JAST being JAST, we didn't see them give us many updates on Muramasa, so people decided to give up on it. At least until July 2021, when JAST abruptly announced that Muramasa would be released shortly, and with their new pace, JAST did manage to release it in August 2021. For the premise, we have an alternative world where Japan (ruled by the Rokuhara shogunate with an iron fist and has unique warriors called musha) has a roaming monster that terrorizes the country by killing many people. Enter Kageaki with his eyes set on it, and then he hunts it down. While usually, we would say that Kageaki is the hero, one should remember the arc word, "This is not a story of the heroes." So, of course, Kageaki will make many horrible decisions to achieve the goal. Since the writer, Narahara Ittetsu, did write both Hanachirasu and Muramasa, with the former having a lot of deaths, sure enough, Muramasa has tons of people dying left and right. Besides that, Narahara here also provides some writing that can be thought-provoking.

1. White Album 2 (VNDB 9.00)

I still remember in 2011 when my roommate listened to the WA2 Closing Chapter opening, and obviously, there was no translated version of it back then. The Todokanai group worked hard to translate WA2, but it took years to finish because of its length. After several years of work, they finally released the full translation patch on December 22nd of last year, making it a nice early Christmas gift from them. For the premise, we have Haruki, who is searching for additional light music club members to perform at the school festival. He manages to get two girls, Setsuna and Kazusa, to participate. Haruki had no idea at the time that he would become embroiled in a dramatic love triangle that would last into his adulthood, and it would be pretty messy, given that each involved person had numerous flaws. WA2 here is Maruto's last VN before he moves on to write the light novel (Saekano), and as I said, Maruto here did write each of the characters like in Damekoi, only with him putting more focus on two heroines instead of just one like in Damekoi. As for the video, I used the Closing Chapter opening because it's where most of WA2 content goes.

That's all for my list of translated visual novels released in 2021. To conclude, 2021 is pretty much an exciting year, with two of the most well-received VNs (Muramasa and WA2) getting translated so we can finally play them in English. Lastly, with JAST's new strategy in that they decided to release the download version first to quicken the releases, I look forward to what they can do in 2022. Of course, I also look forward to what the other companies can do in 2022, especially regarding Nekonyan and Shiravune, despite the latter's liking to use bothersome Denuvo for DRM.

PS - For the title, I combined the words "winter" (the WA2 season motif) and "musha" (the unique warrior in Muramasa), resulting in "The Winter Musha," which is similar to one of Captain America's films (The Winter Soldier).