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Hello all, After many many years of rust, I've recently revived my Japanese studies and I'm looking to tutor/guide someone to help me refresh my basics. Reason being I'll be going to Japan for the first time next year. Specifically looking for someone ranging from fresh beginners (we're going to gloss over basic grammar mostly) or intermediate (going to go over jlpt N2 grammar patterns). I will try to teach these and in the process help me de-rust. As they say, teaching is the best way of learning. We can hold voice/text sessions on discord, where I'm most active. I am by no means a great educator but I can show you the steps of how I approached learning Japanese. This is going to be reading-focus, as my speaking skills are bad atm, so it's good if you eventually want to read a VN. PM me to exchange discord/contact infos and scheduling.

First of all how dare u Second of all How fucking dare u Sora is literally the best thing about ever17

As you can imagine, I got a lot of requests for a similar list over the years, but the thing is, I don't play VNs in English that didn't start out in English. As such, my recommendations are based entirely on my experience of the Japanese versions of these VNs, rather than the localization. As such, don't hold me responsible for your personal experiences, lol. I'm going to split these by genre so I don't have to answer questions along those lines. For the purposes of fairness, I won't include anything with a machine translation (which means no Chuushingura). Chuunige I/O (yes, I did indeed play this, and it was good despite being dated horribly) FSN (you saw that coming, right?) Tsukihime (again, you saw that coming, right?) Comyu (fantasy) Ayakashibito (fantasy) Tokyo Babel (fantasy) Dies Irae (fantasy) Demonbane (fantasy) Sorcery Jokers (fantasy) Hello, Lady (upcoming fantasy) Hatsuru Koto naki Mirai Yori (upcoming eventually, fantasy) Baldr Sky (whenever it comes out (*crosses fingers for your sake* sci-fi) Phantom of Inferno (despite all the problems with the localized version it is a great read) Muv-Luv Alternative (this one is borderline, because it makes you read two mediocre games prior just to understand it) Charage/Moege Noble Works Majikoi (classified this way as long as you don't include the true/last route) Da Capo (the original only, and only because it is wrong not to have the archetypical moege experience at least one time in your VN lifespan) Shuffle (truth be told, I'm basing this assessment off of the expanded version, not the version originally released over here) Sanoba Witch (Yuzu-soft and thus predictably overdone with the ichaicha since this is one of their less plotge-style ones) Dracu-riot (Wait until an official release comes out. The patch currently floating around is a nonentity in comparison) Senren Banka (Sadly not out yet, but something to look forward to) Chrono Clock (I listed it in this one rather than plotge because the 'plot' was a bit too thin) Akatsuki no Goei (the original falls, barely, into this category, despite some seriously disturbing shit involving Kaito's origin story that was dropped here and there and the dystopian nature of the setting. Fan patch will probably be released next year) Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road (yes, I put this here) Note: For those who wonder why my list is sparse on a lot of names beloved by those who play localized games obsessively... you do realize that a lot of the charage that get released over here are from the bottom of the pile, right? Nakige Hapymaher (probably my biggest recommendation for this genre) Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no (for the distant future, something to look forward to) AstralAir no Shiroki Towa (whenever it releases) Hoshizora no Memoria (yes, I recommend it, lol) Irotoridori no Sekai (Eventually. And again, more Favorite... despite the fact that its staff idolize mysterious lolis) Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura doki (I was insanely surprised that this got localized at the time, considering the normal sluggishness of localization at the time) Plotge Koisuru Otome to Shugo no Tate (partial with two routes done. Definitely worth reading, if only to get an idea of what AXL is like) Cross Channel (weirdly, I've always had a fondness for this game and its clinically insane protagonist) Yume Miru Kusuri (yes, I played it. Yes, I liked it) Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta Wake (no idea when this will come out... but definitely a recommendation, for all the screwy shit that happens in it) Nanairo Reincarnation (upcoming soon hopefully for you, since that would mean two kamige releases in two years, lol) Hello,Goodbye (this was a possible for chuunige, but I put it here. This will supposedly release before the end of the year, but I'm guessing March) Gameplay Hybrid Eien no Aselia Seinarukana Ar Tonelico Ar Tonelico 2 (this and the one above can only be considered to be borderline VNs in an odd way, because they are mostly jrpgs with a few VN elements) Note: I don't include anything Eushully, because none of the good ones have a translation that isn't a machine one.

I've heard that "神ゲー" translates directly to "games that I really like and I'm going to shill for every opportunity I get". At least, it's the only definition that matters.

Cliche. I know but I am sincerely thankful for my family. Even though, they don't share half of all my interests or even one fourth of them. Despite that, I swear I will get at least one of my family members to read a visual novel with one. Something basic. Something small. But something like Air Pressure. They have been there for me through thick and thin. I've learned so much from them. I literally wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my family. So fun fact, I'm an argumentative person. I get into arguments a lot, and so my aunt told me that one day, she got into an argument with my dad; He just stormed out into the middle of the cold night, then, the next thing she knew, my mother was pregnant. This is so surreal to me. My dad would yell at my Aunt, you're why "Happiness+ is here!" What are you most thankful for and why?

For what it's worth, according to Nasu, Realta Nua basically represents his original intent before he felt obligated to insert porn into the game. I get the feeling that the truth is somewhere in the middle (as in, sony's restrictions probably forced him to remove more content for the realta nua version than he otherwise would've).

I'd say it's still worth it. It's pretty much impossible to get the original in Japanese at this point. Besides, I think there's not much differences in the text of the battles, only in the CGs themselves. The only route that'll feel different tho is Heavens Feel, since some backstory had to be completely rewritten. But you can read about it later I guess.

Nice, thanks for the list. Hmm, that is what I feared... some of the CGs looked a bit too violent for the PSvita. Ugh, censorship-kun, why u do dis. Is this an official port, or is this a thing added in the fanTL? I'd like to read it in Japanese, as I have heard some... not so good stuff about the translation.

The justifications for some sex scenes were pretty lame on the original to begin with. But oh well, here's a summary of everything that changed: - Mana transfer via sex became a one battling in the mind of the other person or vampirism - Contract sex became some illusion thing with dolphins or something - One completely random dream sex scene became a yuri flirting thing for whatever reason - Blood was toned down in some CGs - Illyas eyes are a bit smaller in some CGs, maybe for her not to be so child like???? - Rape references were purged - One CG of a character ripping another's heart was purged as well - There's now voices, new CGs, new songs, new events in some random places, new OPs and an epilogue for Saber

They added weird and contrived story justifications for the porn that were replaced in the realta nua version, so in effect, it writes out the sex entirely (I'm pretty sure). The violence/gore is kept intact, though the game never had much explicit gore to begin with.

I'm starting YMK. Wish me luck

This is the one I use, mainly because a lot of presentation clickers only do left and right arrow keys which not every VN recognizes as a valid input for the next dialogue. It has wireless, using a USB dongle. Battery life is advertised as "10 hours of continuous usage" but I think that might refer to the laser pointer because I'm pretty sure I've gone far beyond 10 hours of intermittent clicking while reading.

Currently still playing Yumiko's route, but, it got me thinking about one of my favorite Yumiko moments back in Grisaia no Kajitsu, and it wasn't even in her own route. I'm sure most of you already know what I'm referring to. Yes, it's that scene in Michiru's route that conveys just how deeply Yumiko cares about her friends, Michiru included. Sigh. My night is ruined by the waterworks. Sour mood now. I think it's a lot worse that there's no BGM during that particular scene, or rather, the scene was a lot more painful to watch. It's like being forced to watch a cute animal die, but you're given no catharsis in the form of some contrived melancholic music. Just... silence and grim reality. Anyway, it's a good reminder why her route was my favorite route of all back in Kajitsu. It still is now, even if her AS in Meikyuu disappointed me. The heavy theme dealt with in her route wasn't particularly uncommon among VNs, but it's nonetheless relevant. And Yuuji's explanation of felt so realistic and grounded. Sure, he's a rather pompous hypocrite throughout most of Michiru's route, but his words rung true, and he did a good job showing how terrible the consequences would be. Anyway, guess that's why I have a soft spot for Yumiko. Her AS so far is kinda boring, which is a shame, so I hope it will pick up later. Sigh. My mood really took a turn for the worse now that I remember that scene. In hindsight, I'm kinda glad that the anime didn't adapt that scene (IIRC). Not sure if I could handle it watching it in animated form. Then again, it's such a great scene that I also hate that it didn't adapt it... Wasted opportunity.

Mhm, mhm, You's Good End feels the most I like that the epilogue cleverly hides away some of the plot details in vagueness since I haven't unlocked Coco's route yet. Now that I think about it, that would also explain why both Tsugumi and Sora's routes feel "uncomplete," because I haven't reached their combined epilogue yet. Not sure why it's combined though, because honestly, I would rather see an epilogue dedicated to each of them separately. You's epilogue, for example, wraps things up so nicely with her character arc. It feels like it has a lot of closure for her character, so I hope Tsugumi and Sora's epilogue being combined won't affect either of their routes not ending effectively. Anyway, these readings of Good Ends feel kinda short because I kinda just skipped texts I've already read. lol So each Good End only takes me about an hour or two to reach. It won't be long before I hit Coco's route. Kinda anticlimactic, when I made such a big deal about how lengthy this VN is in the past. Next up is Sara's Good End.

Well, MLA has a lot of iconic songs. My personal favorites are these two: And itlooks like it's spin-offs also have pretty... curious soundtracks for VNs. This one kind of reminds me of a certain melody from Star Wars. Ugh. I wonder when ixtl finally gets to localizing their other works. It feels like the whole progress froze after their divorce with Degica.

I read VNs sitting by the table, using my main laptop (17" Lenovo Z570), while having 10" netbook (old Asus EeePC) on the side, with the walkthrough open Reading or watching anything in "weird" positions, like lying on the bed, is actually uncomfortable for me, as it seems to put more strain on my not-so-good-eyes and neck.

VNDB Seriously, if you just pay attention at the beginning of each month to what is scheduled and make a list of the ones you have an interest in, you won't miss anything. That applies for English ones too, though perhaps not as reliable as localizations of Japanese ones.

Yeah, I could see that. In that sense, Sora's route does feel like the only route that reveals little to no important information, and therefore, in a sense, you're correct in saying it "contributes nothing." But again, that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of her route. Actually, now that I think about it, Tsugumi's route bummed me out too, in that certain information about her wasn't revealed either, especially By the way, on an unrelated note, I've learned an important piece of information from Professor Dave in Grisaia no Meikyuu - that you can press F12 to minimize the game in case someone walks in on you playing an h-scene. Thanks, Professor Dave! Edit: >Starts Yumiko's route >First thing I see is >Reaction: EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. >In deadpan Tomokazu Sugita voice: "Ah, my apologies. Looks like I walked into Professor Dave's station by mistake. GOOD DAY. GOODBYE." Yeah. This gonna be "good."[/sarcasm]

Well, just finished Sora's Good End. Hm... remember when I said I doubt that I would change my tone after I finish her route? Well... I was wrong. Tee hee. Not wrong to a large extent, since I still prefer Tsugumi over Sora (both as a character and as a route), but still. Playing her ending, I've come to remembered all the adorable moments she had Now I'll address some of the points @Rain Spectre made: Disagreed to a certain extent. If I had started with Sora's route first, I would have felt almost the same about Tsugumi. That said, there's a reason why I said "to a certain extent"... This. Yeah, it's pretty sloppy writing, very "last minute"-ish. Tsugumi's route has closure; Sora's doesn't, and was very tacked on. Had they expanded her ending (which I assume the XBox version DID... ALL THE MORE REASON IT NEEDS TO BE TRANSLATED/PORTED), I would have put her End above Tsugumi's easily, in spite of how sappy it is (or rather, because of it). However... This point, I disagreed with. There are many VNs where some of the routes contribute NOTHING to the "True Route," and some of those "meaningless routes" end up being my favorites over the True Route. While Sora's route isn't good because of all the problems I mentioned, I wouldn't say I want it to be cut because 1) she's quite a decent character, 2) the route itself is quite tearjerking, 3) the themes and philosophies fit the overall theme of Ever17, so her route doesn't feel out of place. To say a side-plot should be cut because it contributes nothing to the main is... well, simplifying things a little bit. It's not math or a strategy game; you don't cut content because it contributes nothing. It's a story. You only cut it if it's a bad side-plot with no redeeming value. I would say Sora's route would have contributed to the theme of Ever17 had it not been for the unpolished ending. But yeah, I've come to like Sora more as a result of her ending, so it's not all bad. Looking back at all the times I've read about Ever17, I could understand why people called her route the worst route (infodump, infodump, infodump), but I don't think "worst" in this case necessarily equates to "terrible." More like "flawed," "potential squandered." Anyway... now that that's done, time to move on to my waifu, YOU! I. AM. YOU!

I've been doing it for around 5-6 months now and I'm surprised at the progress I have made. There are times where I can go on autopilot when reading and its a really cool feeling.

Warning: you just triggered @Funyarinpa.

While there is no way to determine precise numbers, some of them would have paid for the product if it is unpiratable and there are no piratable smilar products floating around on the net.

Playing now and enjoying very much

To be clear about this: Piracy is not an advantage or great in any way. And I can see the thought process of "well great, 200.000 people just STOLE our product". I get it, it sucks. However, you can't make the mistake of seeing these, lets say, 200.000 downloads as "lost sales". Because they are not lost sales. They aren't lost because nothing was ever sold. They are nothing. If you sold, lets say 500.000 copies of your product and 200.000 also pirated your shit, getting rid of piracy would still mean you only sold 500.000. The only way to actually turn the pirate numbers into customer numbers, is to make pirating more of a hassle than purchasing. And no, that is not accomplished by 23,7 different accounts and 4 spy programs connected to the software, like game developers seem to think. Put it on steam for 10, 20, what have you, bucks. Slap a discount on during release week. Don't break their balls, tickle them. (which also why the "make VNs more expensive" idea is up there with the dumbest plans I've ever read).

I recommend reading this one on my blog as forum formatting makes tables look like shite. Your choice though. I’ve mentioned earlier that I think one of the reasons there haven’t been a lot of translation blogs on Fuwanovel is that a lot of advice the editing blogs are peddling could equally well be applied when translating. But how would that look? In this blog (and maybe series, but me and regular effort don’t tend to get along), I’ll try to show you the process of translating with an eye to using the structure of English writing rather than following the Japanese. The great thing about being the translator rather than the editor (or editing while knowing Japanese, but that’s a luxury) is that you don’t have to go ask the translator if the structure of the Japanese prose, when copied, looks weird. You can just make the adjustment yourself, without worrying that you’re distorting the original meaning too much. This post is primarily aimed at translators, but should hopefully be useful for editors as well. It is probable that some of the patterns shown here could just as well have been picked up by an editing blog; the main difference will be that I can also show how it looks in Japanese. I am by no means perfect, and any comments or suggestions are appreciated. In the spirit of leading by example, I’ll be quoting my in-occasional-progress translation of 私は今日ここで死にます (Watashi wa Kyou Koko de Shinimasu; ‘This is where I die today’). Me and Asonn have settled on the shorthand “shinimasu”, but the author’s comments actually use わた死 (“Watashi” with the last syllable using the kanji for ‘death’ that appears in “Shinimasu”). Thus the title. Let’s start with three lines from the very beginning of the novel. Our protagonist 京介 (Kyousuke) has just seen a girl jump off a bridge, gone after her by jumping himself, and managed to get her out of the river and onto land. The reader doesn’t know this yet, however – the start just talks about what you’d do if you saw someone about to kill themselves. Japanese Literalish translation Adapted translation 「入水自殺、か」 “Suicide by drowning, huh.” “Tried to drown yourself, huh…” ぽつりと呟きつつ、腕の中でぐったりとしている“それ”を見る。 While mumbling a few words in a staccato manner, I look at “that” resting limply in my arms. I look at the girl resting limply in my arms. まだあどけない顔をした少女だ。 It is a girl with a face that is yet cherubic*. Face innocent as a newborn babe’s. The adaptated first line is based on trying to get nuance right. While I mostly did it on instinct, we can motivate it more logically. In English, the literal version feels like something you’d say when starting to talk about a topic – I’d expect Kyou-boi to expound on the subject of suicide by drowning afterward. But in context he’s commenting on the specific act the girl in his arms has attempted. Another consideration is brought by the second line, which shows that Kyousuke is looking at said girl while saying this. So we’re looking for a line that sounds reasonable spoken to a person that can’t hear it. Which is a weird category now that I think of it, but not entirely uncommon. The ellipsis is questionable, especially when cutting ellipses is something editors do all the time in j>e translation, but I have a reason; it’ll be in the next line analysis. The second line features a thing frequently found in Japanese visual novel writing that doesn’t really agree with English style conventions at all: describing speech after it’s already been said. Frequently this is entirely redundant information in a visual novel due to speaker tags, but in some cases it will contain some kind of judgement or opinion of the viewpoint character that you might want to preserve. These kinds of redundant lines is a good reason to ask whoever’s doing technical work on your translation if you can just plain remove lines (for example, they might be able to program something that detects the translated line being exactly “SKIP” and cuts those lines.) However, it should be noted that cutting these redundant lines will change the flow of a text. If it’s frequently used in a passage, you may end up with a very different feel than the Japanese ― perhaps this is worth it, but it’s something to take into consideration. わた死 doesn’t do this that frequently, however, so we probably don’t need to worry. This gives a bit of motivation for adding the ellipsis in line #1; it makes the line more mutter-y in a way that doesn’t make it look weird. This is one strategy for dealing with structural incompatibility: move the piece of information where it does fit. There’s more. The line doesn’t mention “that” being a girl, revealing this in the next line. I’m not sure why the author did this －maybe the lines read better in Japanese that way, and Japanese lines in succession often depend on each other － but the technique just looks weird in English. Thus, we move the information from line 3 to line 2 in our adaptation. The third line is annoying because while we technically do have a word that fits あどけない fairly well, cherubic － angelic, innocent, and youthful － few people are likely to know it and it doesn’t really fit the register the Japanese word uses. As such I’ve tried to reword it, though honestly I’m not really satisfied. I’m also not entirely sure if I’m missing a nuance of まだ (yet in the literalish translation) I should be getting; it’s probably just consonant with あどけない as “still looking young”, but it could also be referring to her state of unconsciousness causing it or something. The next line that I’m not showing talks about her looking young for her age though, so we can at least use that. The other thing of structural interest is that we’ve moved the “girl” piece of information to the second line, as mentioned. …Man this took a while and I only did three lines. I think I’m just going to post. Like, comment, watch the Shinimasu translation progress here, design a double-sided daki with both Yukas on it for me if you’re feeling generous. As a bonus, have a few other examples of describing things after-the-fact and how I’ve currently handled them: As you can see the pattern isn’t limited to just speech. Here I decide to go IN and use context to write a line half new. Another thinking version. And here’s one with 返す. Also this has mixed speech and narration, which I’ve tried to work into the English as well. Though I’m going to go change this to present tense now since I picked that later, fuck. View the full article

You don't seem to care what anyone has to say TBH.

11eyes -Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo- *Summary* Kakeru lost his older sister five years ago. He tries to get back to normal life, but he still lives a vacant life. He has a childhood friend, Yuka, who goes to the same high school. She always tries to cheer him up and he gradually gets better. One day all of a sudden, the sky turns red and the moon becomes black. Everyone besides Kakeru and Yuka disappears and monsters start roaming the streets. All they can do is just to run away and hide. A while later, it all gets back to normal. But when they start to think its all passed the Red Night happens again. They find out that there are four more humans who get involved in this mysterious phenomenon. They get together and try to survive, but six shadows appear in front of them... *Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order* There are four heroines, to unlock Kukuri you need to beat the first three. There is also a Bad End that will give you a CG. Recommended route order: *Route Guideline* Minase Yuka Misuzu Kusakabe Kukuri Tachibana Yukiko Hirohara CG Collection

Sadly, I have neither of these options. I'm dirt poor.

Extract the script and print it...could even add some screenshots for imagery. I have read two VNs on my android tablet and I had issues flagging the True End for one of them, so I never got to finish it. Thus, I can't really recommend unofficial Ren'Py ports, if not for Kinetic Novels. I'd say that a tablet is quite handy though, especially for college and whatnot. The Switch is something I can recommend especially if you're into JRPGs, but I'd say that most VNs will remain Windows only. If you have a 3DS, how about playing the text heavier interactive games, such as the Ace Attorney series? I only wish that I could be playing AAI2 on my handheld instead of on an emulator, so I understand your wish for convenience and comfort. If you feel you are running out of titles to read in English, maybe it's time to consider learning Japanese?