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Well, I wasn't really sure what subsection to put this in but anyway it's still relevant to visual novel talk. This software uses a neural network to recreate censored images. There have been previous similar posts from early versions of this software but it's now actually quite usable. See my post here on reddit: https://new.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/9sjlut/deepcreampy_decensoring_hentai_with_deep_neural/ The long and the short of it is that considering it takes about 10 seconds, it can be used as a starting point for graphic editors to then make a more reasonable decensored image, while still preserving the bulk of the original artist's "impression." No it doesn't look great, but in the absence of original work from the companies, it can be used as the basis for another graphic artist to polish up a decensored version for a localised release. Here's the only sample I've tried it on, NSFW of course: Here're some that others have uploaded:

Hello, KONEKO our upcoming Comedy-romance ANIME visual novel: Tokyo Re:Connect, this is a Commercial game. [Status Update (2/25/2019): DEMO Coming Soon] Support us on Patreon for more contents and rewards (。･ω･｡)ﾉ♡ Game Information: ■ Game: Tokyo Re:Connect ■ Languages: English Subtitles / Voice Acting ■ Interface (GUI): English/Japanese ■ Genre: ADV, Anime, Cute, Comedy, Drama, Slice of life, High School Student, Romance [Boy x Girl] ■ CG: 40-45 CG (plans) ■ SD: 6 (plans) ■ Background: 15-20 BG (plans) ■ BGM: 15-20 tracks (plans) ■ 3 Heroine Girls > 3 Endings ■ Resolution: 1920 x 1080p (Full HD) / 16:9 - Up to 4K ■ Control: Keyboard, Mouse, Touch Screen, Xbox/PS4 Controller support. ■ Release date: Q1 2019 ■ Platform: Steam (PC/MAC)/IOS/Android - All-Age/18+ Patch Later (Fan Service) - Commercial Spring is the season of first meetings. On the advice of his older sister, Touki transfers into Ainoshima Gakuen in the middle of the spring term. His heart is full of expectation of a new life in the city of Tokyo – a vast contrast to the countryside that he grew up in. As he begins to settle into his new life, he encounters fresh faces in the student council president, Ayumi, and an underclassman who admires her, Kuon. What Touki was not expecting was to converge paths with Saya, his childhood friend from a few years ago, who he hadn’t talked to since a certain incident. To make matters more complicated, a mysterious transfer student arrives shortly after. She seems to loathe him immediately and Touki feels that he has met her somewhere before. Within the chaos of the present and the mystery of the past that is chasing him, there is uncertainty in the air as he forges a path towards his future and his desire to connect with others. ■ SCREENSHOT: ■ FEATURE: ■ Total Play Time: 10-15 hours ■ Branching story arcs and multiple endings depending on your choices. ■ Unexpected and surprising plot points that will keep you reading until the very end. ■ Unique characters. ■ High-quality artwork. ■ CG Gallery | Music Gallery Progress: ■ Outlines: Rough Draft ~40% ■ Script: 25% ■ Character Designs : 100% DONE ■ CG Artwork: ~20% ■ Backgrounds: 70% ■ GUI Coding: 40% ■ Script Coding: 15% ■ GUI: 100% DONE ■ Music BGM: 55% ■ Voice Acting : 0% ■ Risks and challenges: Although there’s always a chance that the game’s release might be delayed, the completion of Tokyo Re:Connect is extremely likely at this point. Even if you can't support us, you could contribute by helping us spread the word! It's very important for more people to know about our game. You could make Fanarts or do let's plays, or tell your favorite Youtuber/Twitch Streamer/Press/Media about us! While we cannot promise a smooth sailing development period moving forward, what we can promise is that we’ll be as transparent as possible regarding the setbacks that we’re facing, and what our plans of actions are towards resolving them. We’re not new to game development, so we’re more than ready and equipped to overcome the various challenges we’ve yet to face. We hope we’ve garnered enough credibility, trust, and goodwill in the past to prove to everyone that we always keep our promises to the best of our abilities. Thank you so much for considering to support KONEKO. Have a good day! KONEKO Patreon | Twitter | Facebook

The Tiny Dungeon series worked pretty well as an episodic series. On the other hand, it had two features going for it that most episodic games don't. First, each game also stood alone (for the most part). They had a complete storyline, and although focused on one character, there was still plenty of the other main characters. This also meant a significant amount of content. Second, each release was fast - just 6 months between them. So there was no need to wait long between episodes. Basically, if consumers feel the get their money's worth on each piece AND don't need to wait long, it works. If the pieces aren't worth it, or take too long...

They're honestly quite terrible. I know that most people were drawn to VNs because they almost always got a complete package in one single game and now that companies feel the need to split up releases to make more money, people only get to read a single route per episode and usually have to wait a long time for the next episode. It's a concept that's gonna end up ruining why I and many others love the medium and changing it to be more like manga and LNs except with a lot longer wait time.

A little nsfw

The most advanced neural network known to science is the human brain, and it can reconstruct images nearly instantly using the power of imagination.

Wew. There is just about no conceivable way I'm picking anyone other than Monster Hunter girl first. You would have to introduce a heroine who's super into Ace Attorney within the next 15 lines to change my mind.

Hello, KONEKO our upcoming Comedy-romance ANIME visual novel: Tokyo Re:Connect, this is a Commercial game. [Status Update (4/16/2024): Fix BUG] Support us on Patreon for more contents and rewards (。･ω･｡)ﾉ♡ Game Information: ■ Game: Tokyo Re:Connect ■ Languages: English Subtitles / Voice Acting ■ Interface (GUI): English/Japanese ■ Genre: ADV, Anime, Cute, Comedy, Drama, Slice of life, High School Student, Romance [Boy x Girl] ■ 3 Heroine Girls > 3 Endings ■ Resolution: 1920 x 1080p (Full HD) / 16:9 - Up to 4K ■ Control: Keyboard, Mouse, Touch Screen, Xbox/PS4 Controller support. ■ Release date: Q1 2019 ■ Platform: Steam (PC/MAC)/IOS/Android - All-Age ■ SCREENSHOT: ■ FEATURE: ■ Total Play Time: 10-15 hours ■ Branching story arcs and multiple endings depending on your choices. ■ Unexpected and surprising plot points that will keep you reading until the very end. ■ Unique characters. ■ High-quality artwork. ■ CG Gallery | Music Gallery Even if you can't support us, you could contribute by helping us spread the word! It's very important for more people to know about our game. You could make Fanarts or do let's plays, or tell your favorite Youtuber/Twitch Streamer/Press/Media about us! We’re not new to game development, so we’re more than ready and equipped to overcome the various challenges we’ve yet to face. We hope we’ve garnered enough credibility, trust, and goodwill in the past to prove to everyone that we always keep our promises to the best of our abilities. Thank you so much for considering to support KONEKO. Have a good day! KONEKO Patreon | Twitter | Facebook | Discord

I think one of the main strengths of VNs is that they usually have a complete story. With manga you have to worry about maybe the magazine axing the series like how they completely ruined the end of Beelzebub or that they will push a popular title to continue longer than it should like they did with Death Note. With anime, well they are usually an adaption of something and they usually don't tell the entire story of the original. So with manga and anime being so risky in terms of getting a complete story with a proper ending I think VNs are a really good medium for those who just want to start a story with the knowledge that it will be complete. The only point where I feel like an episodic VN might work is if they aren't sure of the success and make an episode that can work on its own and end in a way where you don't feel like you get cheated of the story. This I think is quite rare though for instance I think Nekopara vol 1 would work pretty well as a self contained story if it had been a financial failure, so pretty much either it does a story that feels complete but also feels like it can easily be expanded on or it is just a shitty thing to do.

The only good thing about episodic releases is that a patient person can just wait and get the full package at the end of the road. Honestly, I have enough complete VNs to read through to not be tempted much by in-progress episodic ones. In the end, it makes very little difference to me, as I'll only buy a finished product and unless the content is somehow degraded by the publishing policy (like becoming an unfocused, inconsistent story with obnoxious cliffhangers), I don't have any real reason to care.

That's a slightly different situation. The story was originally conceived as a single, complete release, and just happened to be later rereleased as three parts. It coincidentally lent itself pretty well to the episodic format. All three parts were released on different dates, though, but but the other hallmarks of episodic releases are missing. tbh, VNs, as a medium, could work pretty well as episodic releases, I've just yet to see an episodic VN fully take advantage of that release format.

Exactly the same as my views on episodic traditional video games, which are rather negative. Disregarding the debate on whether or not it's anti-consumer, it kinda comes off to me as just another way of avoiding any kind of financial risk by not fully investing in a complete release. If it flops, just axe plans for any more episodes and move on, leaving customers with an incomplete story that will never be continued. Frontwing in particular, imo, uses episodic releases this way, and it doesn't look all that good. They can apparently afford to fund development of full JP releases, but after they start focusing on western releases they release a flurry of episodic releases with Kickstarter campaigns? Those actions just scream, "I'm confident in the future success of these products", amirite? An arguement that's typically brought up in favor of episodic releases is that it gets the content to the customer sooner than a full release theoretically would have, but I honestly just don't care. My backlog of games, books, TV shows, movies and VNs can quite easily hold me over a longer wait, and even if they couldn't, I'd be fine waiting. I personally don't buy episodic releases of anything until the "full" product is released, which usually means all the older parts are now on sale. I can see why this perk might appeal to other customers, but it's a bit odd in the western VN scene, where there's usually a delay between the original JP release and the EN release. We're pretty used to waiting for pretty much everything at this point lol I don't really care about the pros of the episodic release format, and the cons don't particularly enamor me with it, either.

I don't like them. Well, if each "episode" can be considered stand-alone VN - like three parts of F/SN - then it may pass, but things like Daresora, with hour-length episodes, and months of waiting for the next one, are unforgivable. 許さない！

I've read about 1.5 routes (Emi and half of Yuu). I really don't know why I did Emi first; didn't really care for her route. Yuu is going a lot better, though. Looking forward to Miyabi a lot, but I'm saving her for last. Also, I'm looking forward to literally all the side routes more than any of the main characters except Miyabi... Biggest surprise: the TL is consistently pretty good! (Except that shiritori scene in Yuu's route, ouch, and the very rare clunker line.) Like, I'm actually enjoying reading this. Ten points to Slytherin.

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No, it can. Sometimes even better. Here thread with examples. NSFW of course.

I started watching this new series that is currently airing, "Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl senpai no yume wo minai". I've watched the first 2 episodes and damn, this shit is good. I love the dynamics of the main couple so much. Two more episodes to go until I catch up, and then I'll be sad waiting till next week.

it's as if they took MML, but made the art better and cut out all the boring scenes ... and once again, side character depression is setting in

So you thought VNs would change your life? You thought it would teach you something? Well, it is possible... but I can tell you straight up that VNs didn't start having effects on my mental processes and psychology until I started playing them untranslated. In the end, I concluded that, other than the loss of my more prudish self, it was actually thinking constantly in the language for hours on end for years at a time which had an effect on me. Even then, it mostly manifested in a distaste for rude behavior and being less likely to start cussing if I was thinking in the language. The lessons 'taught' in most VNs are the same taught in all sorts of other stories across the world... did you really think it was going to be different just because the medium was different? A story is a story, a metaphor is a metaphor, and in the end, the lessons you learn are entirely up to you.

This whole backing campaign was clearly just a way to raise the sales of the existing two chapters without having to release anything after that. Everybody knows that an incomplete episodic story will never sale if there isn't any hope for it to be completed at some point.