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I’ve recently read a few thoughtful discussion threads on the state of the VN market here in the West. Some taking a negative stance, some with a more positive outlook. I thought I’d try to put some numbers on these statements and look at VN ownership on Steam, still the predominant market for PC games, and use that to analyse whether VNs are on their true route or have stumbled into a bad end. Data collection I checked just over a million steam profiles to try and get a random sample of gamers. With Steam’s new private-by-default profile settings, only 8% of those users had public game lists, but that still gave us 80k user profiles to work with. I could then compare my sample with the “leaked” owner data and scale up my numbers accordingly to represent Steam as a whole. Steam is rather haphazard with what gets tagged as a Visual Novel (RPGMaker games like A Bird Story are tagged as VNs), so I’ll only be including games that also have a VNDB entry. Steam VN releases So let’s start simple, with a simple plot of how many VNs are being released each month. At first glance things seem rosy for VN fans, there have never been more VNs being released in the West. But let’s break down those results a bit: Note that these trends are cumulative but NOT stacked. The EVN, JVN, and other VNs trends include only non-free VNs. Here we can start to see the reason for the differing perspectives on the state of the VN market depending upon whether you read more JVNs or EVNs. While the rate of EVNs releases has steadily increased, the number of new JVNs has remained fairly static since 2016, despite Steam’s lowered release requirements. Steady release rates aren’t definitely bad news, but in general profitable industries want to expand, so the lack of expansion tells you something about the industry. But as someone with a plan-to-read list that grows longer by the day, I’m not complaining if the rate doesn’t increase. One under-reported development in the VN market is the recent rapid growth of Chinese VNs (listed as other here), who have quietly been doing well in their home markets, but are rarely translated. So while more VNs might be good for us fans, how does the market look for developers? Let’s have a look at VN sales. Note that these trends are cumulative but NOT stacked. All sales are back-dated to the release date of the VN on Steam. Free VNs count sales as the number of users who have logged some playtime in it. Unfortunately Steam’s API doesn’t list when someone bought a game, so we’ve got to group sales by the release date of the VN. That means there will be a bias towards older releases which have been out longer and so had more time to build up sales. Here we can see some justification for the doom and gloom perspectives, with more recent VN releases selling significantly less than older ones. With new JVNs in 2017 selling only half what they did in 2016. The EVN downward trend is especially stark given that the number of new releases has been increasing, so that’s less revenue split among even more VNs. Not all VNs are equal, some are priced higher, so let’s look at total revenue rather than total sales. Note that this assumes every user pays full price, so this is more the maximum possible revenue than actual revenue. Here we can see the difference between EVN and JVN markets. While JVNs sell only half as many as EVNs, they earn almost as much revenue due to their higher price. We again see the same dip in more recent revenue though, 2017 was only 46% of 2016′s revenue, and 2018 looks even worse so far. Remember, this fall in revenue coincidences with an increase in the total number of releases, so to fully comprehend the drop on revenue, let’s look at the average sales per VN. First, we should note that this massively overestimates the average revenue generated as it assumes every user pays full price. I know devs who would sell their soul for 282k per VN. Oh wait, they already did when they signed up for Steam... (just kidding, I do like Steam, but it has issues). The important aspect here isn’t the y-axis total which is unreliable, but the consistent downwards trend. But it might not be as bleak as it seems, older VNs are more likely to have been in bundles and in Steam sales, so their revenue is likely overestimated compared with more recent releases. So I’d be hesitant to claim that revenue is necessarily dropping, but I think we can confidently claim that revenue isn’t increasing. VN Reviews Nostalgia for a past golden age is common everywhere, not least among VN fans. It’s not uncommon to hear that newly released VNs aren’t as good as older ones, but can we get any empirical data on this point? We can get close by looking at the Steam reviews of VNs over time. Each dot represents the average thumbs up/down ratio for any VNs released that month. Within the JVN market, we can see some truth to the nostalgia viewpoint. Older releases were more consistently rated higher. But that isn’t to say there aren’t new highly rated JVNs. They still maintain enviously high scores overall. As for EVNs, while they had consistently scored lower than JVNs, they’re catching up and are now pretty comparable in review ratings of JVNs. Just for fun, let’s see how the total review count compares between VNs. The two free-VN spikes are for Emily is Away and DDLC. As I’m sure anyone familiar with the VN community can tell you, JVN fans are vocal, and it shows in the total reviews VNs get. Despite there being only half as many JVNs as EVNs, they still attract more reviews than EVNs do. This is perhaps because JVNs are typically far longer than EVNs, so might be worth the time of writing a review. What free-VN fans lack in the wallet, they make up for in their word-count. Although this is massively skewed by two free VNs which compromise 70% of all free-VN reviews: Emily is Away and DDLC. They seem anomalies rather than trends. As shown by the graph when we exclude those two: *Excluding Emily is Away and DDLC. Despite the drop in position, free-VNs still out-perform what we’d expect given their lower count of total owners, but that may be because EVN and JVN totals include users who own the VN but have never read it. Whereas the free-VN total only includes those who have logged playtime in that VN, so there’s a larger pool of possible reviewers. Potential Issues There are a few sources of uncertainty in the dataset. The selection of users who have set their profiles to public might not be representative of the wider Steam userbase. It probably undercounts more casual fans who are less likely to configure their Steam profile. We also don’t know when someone purchased a VN, so it’s possible VN sales are increasing, but a lot of that money is going to older releases, especially if they’re in bundles and Steam sales. In inclusion of VNs in game bundles may be distorting the image of the VN fandom, as it’ll include those who have little interest in the medium and only own a VN by happenstance. We should also remember that “Steam” is not synonymous with the VN market. There are plenty of competitors in the VN scene, namely Mangagamer and itch.io, who tend to cater to different tastes than Steam does. So we’re only getting a partial picture of the Western VN scene. Conclusion There’s data here to support both the optimistic and pessimistic commentary. On the positive side, there have never been more VNs being released as there are now. EVNs are improving with higher average ratings and a few have reached mainstream attention. On the pessimistic side, it seems like there are ever more VNs competing for a fanbase that isn’t significantly growing. While I’d be wary of claiming profits are falling, it seems highly likely they aren’t increasing, and a stagnant market is not a healthy one. Personally, I think the future is bright. While VNs might not be destined to become blockbuster successes, there is enough of sustainable fanbase to support lots of indie developers, who are the most prone to innovate and write interesting new stories. As a VN fan, I’m excited to see what comes next~ --- I hope you found the article interesting. I had wanted to include a section analysing the Steam users, how many VNs do JVN fans purchase compared to EVN fans etc. But I want to spend a little longer going into more depth on it, so I’ll have a post up next week on that. If you’re interested in more until then, check out my other tumblr analysis posts, look out for updates on my twitter, or give me a yell on Discord (Sunleaf_Willow ／(^ n ^=)＼#1616). Special thanks to /u/8cccc9 for collaborating on the analysis, and Part-time Storier for proof-reading. I just do these analyses for fun, but if you want to support my work with a tip, I accept small donations at ko-fi.

Perhaps the most universal complaint of those who read Japanese VNs, regardless of their tastes, is the bland, non-people, average protagonists that make up better than 90% of all VN protagonists. This trend began with the first moege, as a technique to allow people to self-insert more easily, but the tradition has worked against VNs more than it has worked for them, with protagonists with unique quirks turning out to be almost as important to a VN's lasting popularity as heroine quality. Unfortunately for those new to VNs, it is impossible to tell at a glance whether a protagonist will be interesting or not based on the cover, since most protagonists don't have a tachie, voice-acting, or a character description on the official site, lol. So, as a service to my fellow Fuwans, I decided to go ahead and make this list. The greater majority of these games will be untranslated, but I will go ahead and list ones that are translated that I know of. Feel free to help me add to the list, though this one is for Japanese-origin games, not EVNs. The baseline for these protagonists will be that they are either unique, unusual, or capable (intelligent, talented, and/or skilled at something and have something approaching a personality) without deliberate nerfing of their qualities to make heroines stand out more. Harem protagonists who are merely kind to everyone will not count for the purpose of this list, and characters whose personality/capabilities/talents/skills get toned down in the heroine routes will also not qualify. Translated Tokyo Babel Ayakashibito Hello, Lady (soon) Hapymaher Noble Works (yes, he does make the baseline) Dracu-riot (assuming the official release comes out) Nanairo Reincarnation (soon) Tsukihime FSN Comyu (yes, I include this... because even if you hate Akihito's man-whore qualities, he is definitely not a cardboard cut-out character) Rance games (I hate the Rance games, personally, but you can't say he isn't unique) Majikoi Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road (Dai only seems sheeple on the surface... he has enough depth as a character to qualify) Eien no Aselia (while his personality is standard for a jrpg protagonist, it has enough twists and unique qualities to make the list) Seinarukana (similar to above) Fata Morgana no Yakata (I wavered because of the way the game is structured, but I chose to list it anyway) Grisaia series Kikokugai Demonbane 11eyes Rewrite (I hate this protagonist, but he stands out, even if he is a dumbass) Animamundi Baldr SkyDive (whenever it comes out) ChuSinGura (I honestly wavered on this one, both because the protagonist is a moron and because I don't consider this to have been truly translated) Cross Channel Daiteikoku Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Dies Irae I/O Yumina Kyonyuu Fantasy (yes, I'm serious even as I'm laughing) Planetarian Rose Guns Days Sekien no Inganock Gakthun Sharin no Kuni Shikkoku no Sharnoth Shin Koihime Musou (apparently tl is at 100%, so I'm including it) Sorcery Jokers (Senri!!!) Tears to Tiara Tokeijikake no Leyline series Venus Blood Frontier (whenever it comes out) Wanko to Kurasou Eden* Untranslated Akeiro Kaikitan Ikusa Megami series Soukoku no Arterial Fuukan no Grasesta Madou Koukaku Silverio series Tiny Dungeon series Zero Infinity Electro-Arms Soranica Ele Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier Komorebi no Nostalgica Devils Devel Concept Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana Evolimit Bullet Butlers Tokyo Necro Soukou Akki Muramasa Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai Shugo no Tate series Amatsutsumi Floral Flowlove Aoi Tori Mirai Nostalgia Bradyon Veda Draculius Gensou no Avatar Abyss Homicide Club Hyper→Highspeed→Genius Inochi no Spare Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo yori mo Konata yori Kanata Made Kanojo wa Tenshi de Imouto de Jingai Makyou "Hello, World" Natsu no Owari no Nirvana Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas Rui wa Tomo o Yobu Ryuukishi Bloody Saga Vermilion Bind of Blood Satsukoi Sinclient Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide Suisei Ginka Yurikago yori Tenshi Made Izuna Zanshinken Tasogare no Sinsemilla Valkyrie Runabout Sekai o Sukuu dake no Kantan na Oshigoto Haru to Yuki Semiramis no Tenbin Tsukiakari Lunch Tsuisou no Augment Kamikaze Explorer Prism Recollection Houkago no Futekikakusha Izayoi no Fortuna Natsuzora no Perseus Minamijuujisei Renka Ojou-sama no Hanbun wa Ren'ai de Dekiteimasu Yami to Hikari no Sanctuary Sakura no Mori Dreamers AstralAir no Shiroki Towa Irotoridori no Sekai Senren Banka Reminiscence Akagoei series Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru Harumade Kururu Haruru Minamo ni Kin'iro Loveriche Love Rec. Natsuiro Recipe Shuumatsu Shoujo Gensou Alicematic Sakura Nikagetsu Iroha ~Aki no Yuuhi ni Kagefumi o~ Campus's Uso series World Election (seriously push this one for fantasy charage lovers) Curio Dealer Kami no Ue no Mahoutsukai Lamunation Sora no Tsukurikata Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa Sakura, Sakimashita Amairo Islenauts Blade x Bullet Gouen no Soleil Dekinai Watashi ga, Kurikaesu Doushite, Sonna ni Kurokami ga Suki na no?! (more charage with some plot) Boku ga Tenshi ni Natta Wake Butterfly Seeker Fake Azure Arcology Re:Birth Colony Gekkou no Carnevale Hatsuyuki Sakura Gurenka Hikari no Umi no Apeiria (this guy's personality is so out there you wouldn't even be able to tell if anything effected him, lol) Hotel. (this is also a joke from me that I can share only with those few who have read it, lol) Kamigakari Cross Heart Kimi to Boku to no Kishi no Hibi Witch's Garden Kono Sekai no Mukou de Kouyoku no Soleil Lovesick Puppies (more food for charagamers) Toppara Zashiki Warashi no Hanashi Naka no Hito Nado Inai Natsuiro no Nostalgia Ojou-sama wa Gokigen Naname Onigokko Otomimi Infinity Para-Sol Prima Stella Paradise Lost Kajiri Kamui Kagura Sanzen Sekai Yuugi (only Otomege I know of that fulfills the prime condition) Primal x Hearts Tayutama (original only) Shinigami no Testament Shogun-sama wa Otoshigoro Stellula Eques Codex Tasogare no Himekishi (seriously, the protagonist is subject to some interesting stuff, like akuochi and/or corruption of characters) Toki o Tsumugu Yakusoku Unjou no Fairy Tale Yuganda Uso no Koi to Letter Yoru Meguru, Bokura no Maigo Kyoushitsu Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou Request includes G-Senjou no Maou Aiyoku no Eustia Watashi no Real wa Juujitsu Shisugiteiru Shirogane no Soleil Root Double Edit: A lot of these characters stand out due to personality traits or quirks, as much as anything else. The key point is that the protagonist is a 'person' instead of a cipher or catalyst. For those who wonder why I didn't include Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, the reason is pretty simple... in every path, the protagonist's individuality vanishes and he becomes enslaved to the heroine's character needs.

After ten years playing VNs, you would think I would have completely lost faith in them by now, especially considering just how many I've played (744 not counting most of the nukige, replays and incomplete/dropped ones). Most VNs that aren't nukige are SOL-fests that exist solely to promote nostalgic fantasies about life in high school and getting into bishoujos' pants... not that that is an entirely horrible goal, but it isn't something I want to see five hundred times over. The romance is usually puerile and has no relation to reality, the characters have all their hard edges filed away by the needs of the archetype, and drama is used solely to add 'spice' (like one sprinkle of pumpkin spice, not cracked red pepper) to an otherwise endlessly sweet and bland recipe. So how is it that someone who has experienced that much essentially boring and pointless repetition of the same scenarios able to continue to enjoy VNs, even if he can't stand meaningless SOL anymore? At one time, it was a sense of duty, a belief that I was doing the community good by digging gems out of the piles of crap that are the SOL genre. I also had a sense of pride that I made an effort of objectivity that I have literally seen no one else attempt. I played games no one else bothered with because they didn't have the time or patience, and I did it because I thought someone looking at the games would want to know what they were getting into. I paid a price in a growing sense of bitterness, of boredom, and of a sense that I was forgetting the reason why I began to read fiction in the first place. I paid a price in people continually being trolls and trying to draw me into fights over my opinions on these games. I had people start reddits and send me pms being sympathetic about the very conversations they'd started (yes that happens). I also had people who respected what I was doing, and I knew there were people in the community who benefited from the fact that I was doing it. I watched VNs I had pushed get localizations and fantls (usually to my surprise), and I saw others that I had labeled as mediocre get hyped to a ridiculous degree. I tried to get other people to help with what I was doing, only to find that, without a reading speed similar to mine, it was too much of a burden on their lives and ate up the time to read the VNs they wanted to read. The bad generally outweighed the good immensely while I was doing VN of the Month, and even after, I found that the after-effects of my years of playing games I wasn't interested in personally had left me with scars I was unable to feel while my sense of duty was keeping me going. However, I can say that I still haven't given up on VNs. Why? The reason is ridiculously simple and at the same time profound (at least to me). I love the medium. For someone who likes an experience that combines the reading, visual input, and music without the need for a lot of input from the one experiencing it, VNs provide a unique storytelling experience. Books are great for the imagination and can send our souls exploring across landscapes that exist only in our own minds, but VNs provide a more filled-out framework for those who don't necessarily have the imagination to fill in all the gaps on their own, without rotting the imagination to the degree manga and anime do. I've been able to get people who had trouble reading books into VNs, then led them straight back to books and opened the world of imagination to them. I've seen people who had begun to feel the otaku community offered nothing more to them come alive again after playing a chuunige or a charage. I've picked up a random moe-looking VN and found a deep and compelling story that remains within me dozens of times. In the end, it is moments, experiences like that that keep me coming back, believing in the possibilities of VNs even now. It is the desire to find more such experiences that keeps me looking at new releases each month, and it is the belief that those experiences will never entirely vanish that keeps me from condemning the industry as a whole for the way it sabotages itself at times.

It's that time of the year again. Time to reflect on everything you made of good and bad in the year. But who cares about getting chained down by your past forever huh? So let's skip that part and look forward to the future! To what we can (and can't do) to make Fuwanovel great... again? Did we ever were great? Debatable. So anyways, let's all collect suggestions of changes we want to see here in the coming year. If you're feeling a bit uninspired, I suggest to vote for one of the wonderful suggestions I make below. Because I thought long and hard (aka 3 minutes, rough estimation) in the well being of our beloved dysfunctional community. Create a pinned "Translation Salt" thread under Visual Novel Talk, because lately every single release gets this; Rename Walkthrough section to "SeniorBlitz's Secret Dungeon"; Rename Translation Projects to "Fan Translations Burial Ground" because lately they're mostly dropped anyway; Create a board "Introduce Yourself and Never Speak Again" under Introduce Yourself because yep; Rename Community Coordination and Feedback to "Tay and Co. Burial Ground" (I'm sorry Tay, we love you); Create a pinned "Looking for Hentai Animation or Visual Novel (Powered by Monta93TM)" thread under Anime/Manga Recommendation; Rename Leaderboard to...... anything tbh no one will notice kek kthxbye

08/27 - COMPLETE PATCH released! Mosaic removed from all scenes! !! COMPLETE PATCH !! Maitetsu 18+ Demosaic Patch - v0.9a.7z Installation guide: - if you have downloaded the daily patch - patch3.xp3 just manually delete it ( you don't need it anymore because its already inside the Maitetsu 18+ Demosaic Patch - v0.9a.7z ) Q: "Why V0.9a? When it's complete" A: "The v1.0 slot is reserved for the install wizard with additional content/mods/etc, and the 'a' in '(v0.9) a' stands for alpha, because the patch stills needs polishing, like redrawing the first released scenes" Want to support the project?

For those familiar with me, you know I spent year after year doing VN of the Month and that I ritualistically complained about how tired I was of this or that trope or bad habit that plagued the industry or games. I was asked repeatedly why I could still plow through so many VNs, despite the stress? The simple answer is that I have always been stubborn as hell. I've experienced 'burnout' numerous times in my life, mostly because I have a naturally obsessive personality. Once I start obsessing over something, I literally am incapable of ceasing to do so without something jarring me completely away from it for a time, which usually results in me realizing I burned out long ago and have just been hanging out of stubbornness. The same was the case for VNs. When I first started playing VNs, all VNs were worth at least trying. However, as time went on, I increasingly lost interest in most nukige and eventually my interest in 'everyday teenaged life SOL romance' (or 'the standard charage') began to fade. It was probably about 2016 when this reached the critical point, but it took another year and a two-week bout of flu where I couldn't think well enough to play anything to bump me out of my years-long trance. Part of it was that I rarely, if ever, took a break from VNs during those years. I was always playing at least one, and I had a tendency to barrel through them consecutively without even a short pause to rest, week after week, month after month. I used most of my free time to play them, I structured my work schedule and habits around playing them, and I generally existed solely to do so. I dunno how many of you can even imagine what living like that is like... but it was the fact that I am no longer driven to play game after game that is letting me sit back and enjoy the few I actually want to play. I go back and pull stuff out of my attic on a whim, I dig through my collection based on a desire to relive a single scene, and I generally just take pleasure in playing what I want to play. Would it be strange for you to hear that this all feels unnatural to me, after all these years? I've been playing third-rate charage I didn't want to even see, much less play, for years... and now I only play stuff that takes my interest, dropping them if I don't see any hope for the game to break out of the shell of mediocrity. I don't feel driven to blog about replays beyond when I feel like it or when I think I have something to add to a previous assessment, and I can actually sit back and enjoy the few charage I actually feel like I want to play. While I do have regrets, they aren't about the years spent obsessing and over-playing VNs, despite my previous words. I set out to do VN of the Month because, at the time, there was no way for people to have an idea of what they were getting into with most VNs. It was a bit startling how few people were seriously trying to let people know what kind of VNs were out there without spoiling everything from beginning to end. Even today, most reviewers can't seem to keep heavy spoilers out of the text, which saddens me. However, I no longer feel that it is my mission to 'fix' this. I've been there, I've done that, and I won't be doing it again. I will still play VNs, and I will still review them (on occasion), but don't expect me to be as prolific as I used to be, lol.

EDIT: Patch taken down for some important reasons. Check in later for details. Instructions: Simply insert the patch file, root.pfs.003, into your Boku to Nurse no Kenshuu Nisshi game folder (the folder with the other root.pfs files). VNDB FAQ: Staff: Merry Christmas!

Update 1 (12:45 AM EST) Technical issues have caused a hiccup in tonight's upgrade process. Going to ping Nay and we'll try again later today. For now, the forums and front site will be put back online. Original Message: Forums Going Offline at 12:00 (Midnight) EST In approximately 1.5 hours (at the time this goes live), the forums will be going offline for an unknown amount of time so that I can perform an outrageous amount of updates and fixes. I will announce when the forums are back online on our Twitter account (link). Please panic, and may the VN gods have mercy on our souls. (Aside: after the forums are updated -- or irreparably broken -- I will also be working on the front site. Once that's done, if I have any energy and strength left in my body, I will try and make a post updating the community about recent events which have caused my absence, and briefly touch on ways we can move forward.) < 3 - Tay

Partial patch is now out! Link below and also in the first post: https://mega.nz/#!no0DyQza!DZShSFgME_-iW6vaEdYy3oek-794a1yiuiW48U05dBQ This partial patch covers up to the end of Eris' chapter (Chapter 2). Just extract the files from the zip and overwrite the game files. Some points to take note: - If you are playing Aiyoku no Eustia from a save file from the old Yandere English patch and apply this new patch, you will notice that upon loading the save file, the first line of the save file will appear gibberish. Don't worry! Just Quick Jump to a previous line. The previous line will appear gibberish, but subsequent lines will appear as normal. - If you are playing Aiyoku no Eustia for the first time, you don't need to worry about the above point. Sorry for the long wait, but I wanted to make sure the partial patch is in good condition before I release it. So here you are. Hope you enjoy! It definitely isn't canceled! I was just waiting for the QCer to finish his QC before I set up the patch (it took him a while because of life getting in the way). So yeah Thanks for your comments btw!

Yeah, a good protagonist should be a super manly badass who doesn't give a fuck about anything. And he should curse, smoke, drink beer and after drinking the beer, throw the bottle at some bitch's head.

Hello everyone, I'm back with another progress update. First of all, about the translation... I've finished translating all of the scripts for the story! (Yay! XD) Now, this doesn't mean that the game is fully translated. There are still many things that need to be translated such as the Eushully Room, the character information, etc. I'd say around 85% of the whole game have been translated. Next, around 1/3 of the menu images have been edited. Chapter 2 is still in tlc and editing. The in-game terminologies list is also being translated. I think that's about it this time. While this is quite a big milestone for us, it'll still be a while before the game is fully translated. Please bear with us until then ^^. Thank you, and see you next time ^^!

About that picture, I am well aware of it and it is indeed good constructive feedback, so it's all good. Also note that all the lines in that picture are in Eris' chapter only and not the other chapters. The truth is, Eris' chapter was translated by another translator, and while I did TLC of it, it seems I didn't do a thorough enough TLC (I didn't think it would be that serious), so no excuses there. Hence, I'm currently relooking into Eris' chapter (now that I'm done translating Licia's chapter) and ironing out the spotty translation mistakes in there. That said, I might release another partial patch which will not only feature the fixes in Eris' chapter, but also adds Saint Irene's chapter (Chapter 3). We'll see how things go More importantly though, it would be great if I can get feedback on the prologue and Fione's chapter, because those 2 chapters are translated by me, and there hasn't been any major feedback on those 2 chapters. Eris' chapter is also the reason why I'm translating this VN solo now btw.

It has been almost six months since I ceased VN of the Month. I can say now that while I do, surprisingly, miss some aspects of that particular column, the freedom giving it up has granted me is far greater compensation. When I was doing VN of the Month, I was literally the only person commenting on most of the non-nukige VNs in a given month. I was driven by a sense of obligation to those who read my blog to continue regardless of what it was doing to me and my life, and I can say now that that wasn't a healthy situation for me. I am still a VN addict. I probably always will be, just as I am a heavy reader in general and a lover of role-playing games. However, I still think the role I put it on myself to play was a necessary one. How many people who play untranslated VNs give honest opinions devoid of spoilers? For that matter, how many of them are honest about their biases when they feel they can't give a particular VN a fair chance? I made myself abide by a pretty strict set of rules when I was doing VN of the Month. One was that I would primarily evaluate VNs based on story, character development, and setting, while only mentioning visual and audio elements when they were obviously exceptional. My reason for this is that I lack the background to properly evaluate the technical aspects of audio-visual materials, whereas I have extensive experience with all sorts of reading material in general and fiction in particular. Another was that I would, on a regular basis, restate my particular biases, reminding people of the limitations of my objectivity. This was because I was writing on all VNs I played for the first time, and it would have been unfair for me to fail to state my biases beforehand when playing something that was outside my tastes or something that hit them spot on. The third was a resolve to avoid excessive spoilers. My standard was the Getchu page. If information was released on the Getchu page or the official site, I didn't consider it to be a spoiler, but I was to avoid spoiling things beyond that, except when absolutely necessary. The fourth and final rule was to strive for objectivity inasmuch as possible and be honest with myself and my readers when it wasn't possible. These rules were my guide posts for the years I did VN of the Month, and they served me well, generally... but I reached my limit. To be blunt, VN of the Month was only made possible because of my high reading speed and my willingness to structure my life solely around playing VNs and making money to buy more. Naturally, this way of doing things was doomed to failure eventually, but I got so caught up in actually doing it that I didn't notice it really at the time. Now, I play only what I want to play, and that makes me a much happier person, despite a few wistful moments where I wonder if I couldn't have done it a little while longer.

I know it’s hard being a fan translator because for one you might get cease and desisted if the company finds out you’re translating their intellectual property, two it could be such an arduous task, third people will shit all over your translation for being “too literal”, “ bad prose” etc. I sincerely want to thank you all for helping the medium grow to this level. So, if you’re struggling right now with a translation: Please. Don’t. Give. Up. Because learning Japanese isn’t like picking up Spanish or French, it’s such a huge learning curve and nobody aside from the most dedicated of fans are willing to learn it just to read JVNs. I became a fan of this medium the moment I read Fate/Stay Night by the God and Goddesses of Mirror Moon. After that, I read Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. That wouldn’t have been possible without you guys. While there’re companies that will localize VNs, they have to localize only the ones they can make a profit off of or have permission to do so. Which is very limiting. There’s so many God-Tier JVNs like Mahoyo that remain untouched or the fan translation group gave up. You guys translate visual novels out of the kindness of your heart. I couldn’t be any more grateful. If I met any of you in person, in real-life, I would buy you a beer and give you hug. It’s the least I could do, because people forget how small this community really is. We’re extraordinarily niche. There’s many otaku who have no idea what a visual novel is and they might never even heard of it unless there’s an anime adaptation of said visual novel. But they wouldn’t be able to read it, unless it was translated. Such as the case with Fate/Stay Night and many other visual novels that were adapted into anime. If you’re working on translating a visual novel, please finish it, you may not know, but there could be someone out there who will read your translation and join this amazing community. I am proof of that, and everyone else here who cannot read Japanese is proof of that. I want you all to know that. I want you all to know how important each of you are. Especially, when elitists are quick to belittle all your efforts. Keep going. Keep pressing forward. Fan translators are the unsung heroes of the visual novel medium. You sacrifice time, effort, and many other things to put something out there without any pay. Translating has been such a thankless job, so I will extend my thanks and I hope many others will do the same. Especially since Fuwanovel is home to fan translations. There wouldn’t be a EVN renaissance without you. Hell. There wouldn’t be a fandom or a community here, since you guys literally make visual novels popular in the west.

Here's all your hatless avatars back. Personally, I'm going to change mine back when the liturgical Christmas season ends, because I'm not a heathen. @1P1A @Akshay @alpacaman @bakauchuujin @Canicheslayer @Dergonu @Dreamysyu @Emi @Funyarinpa @Happiness+ @LemiusK @MaggieROBOT @mitchhamilton @SeniorBlitz @Silvz @tahu157 @Thyndd @UnlimitedMoeWorks @wei123 @Zakamutt (Man, the @ function is buggy in every way imaginable. Fix that shizzle, Tay.)

...the Era of Obnoxious Shilling for EVNs! It's been exactly a year since I wrote my first post around here and God damn it, it's hard to believe it has only been that long. This site seriously rearranged the way I'm spending my free time and provided me with tons of fun and a satisfying outlet to channel my questionable writing. I won't be doing shoutouts this time, because there are just too many people to list and I would most likely miss someone that deserves being mentioned, so I just want to thank all of you for putting up with me, and simply being awesome in this awesome little community. :3 My only regret is that in all this time I didn't find a way to contribute to the main site and help with the permanent crisis there... But, hell, I'm not going anywhere, so there's a good chance opportunities will still show themselves eventually. One can dream, at least... And, however things go, I hope I'll be able to do a few more of these Fuwanniversaries in the future.

@Fred the Barber

Huuuuuuuuh... I see many things that are absolutely wrong with your statement. First, really there's no translation quality/choice drama in other otaku niches? I've seen people going apeshit over minor details in anime translations and inconsistencies between the fan and official versions. On the one hand, there'll always be purists that are demanding top quality every time and on the other, there will be botched or poor-quality translation on both the fan and official side of things. The more choice and comparison people have, the more likely they are to criticize underperforming projects - when fan translators were your only hope for playing pretty much any VNs, you were less likely to complain about their work than now, when they compete with a fairly rich selection of professional releases. I things it's even somewhat legit to argue that nowadays there's little sense in translating a VN unless you can do it well. The second, do you know about many EVNs being translated to Japanese? People actually caring about those? It's a non-topic, but I would be surprised if Japanese VN fans didn't have a problem with poor translations - they aren't used to awful localizations and don't treat them as "facts of life" like Western otakus were forced to by turd-quality products offered to them on a regular basis. Demanding quality seems like a pretty reasonable standard, especially for commercial products. And the VN fandom today is not reliant on fan translations anymore and people's attitudes towards those are not any kind of "crucial barrier" for its growth. Also, there are many other reasons why fan translations are pretty much dying out - people that once done them professionalizing or moving on with their lives is the main one and there's no going back from this. What's left is the official publishers, and if you suggest we shouldn't take those up to highest scrutiny as their clients, that's pretty much saying you want them to screw you over with subpar services. Well, you're allowed to act against your own self-interest of course, but that doesn't look like a healthy narrative.

Hello world, been a long while. So, I've been busy, real busy. But, it's finally going to pay off. We're almost at the goal, and I'd like to thank all of those over here at Fuwa who have stuck around with me until now, be it from the start, or when this project started to gain traction. Thank you so much. Now then, until next time, when we'll be releasing the full game, after 2,5 and almost three years. Also haven't sold out. https://arcadeotic.wixsite.com/euphemictl/single-post/2018/09/22/Final-Stretch

You should read this over at https://j-addicts.de/vn-of-the-month-december-2003/ as not only does it have (some) juicier screenshots, but the formatting is much better. First of all, I believe I should thank the j-addicts/Koutou Yuumin team for their knowledge and expertise. This article grew way beyond my expectations, and I would surely have lost my way without them. Also, to the several friends who gave me feedback and helped me out in various ways, thank you very much. Well then, shall we start? This month has four masturpieces (get it?). They are Saishuu Chikan Densha 2, Kadowakashi, Christmas★Present, and Kizumono no Shoujo Gaiden. That being said, there are still several other quite decent games. The game that surprised me the most by the positive and my personal masturpiece is Jam 'n Limit, and the games that disappointed me much were Eisai Kyouiku and Yami no Koe III. If you're looking for this month's overall best game, the answer is probably something boring like Saya no Uta (the answer, not the game). How are masturpieces decided, you ask? Introducing: the fap-o-meter! In Erogamescape, it's possible to vote on how suitable the H-scenes were for fapping material, ranging from "Weren't useful at all" to "Were pretty useful." Thus, I will attribute a numerical score (from 0 to 5) for each of those and tally up the average. This will be known as the fap-o-meter. This isn't a fallible and objective method, but it should give an idea of how much cummies the players were able to get out of these games. The Games To begin with, I decided which games to play based on EGS's database. This is because it's bound to have more games listed than vndb. Out of 107 releases, I checked out 31 games. There were 21 games I would've considered for review, except that I wasn't able to obtain them as nearly all of them are obscure doujin games, which were sold exclusively at Comiket. I blacklisted 55 games: 32 are moege/charage/plotge – basically, games that have too much plot or other crap in the way of my precious porn, 9 were re-releases, 7 were PS2 games or not VNs, 6 were all-ages and thus no porn, and 1 was listed incorrectly. Please keep in mind that just because a game is ranked higher or lower, it's not an absolute indicator of its quality. Some games cater to one fetish exclusively, so they're not bound to please everyone. The game titles have been localized by me, as I thought that's something that a predominantly English-speaking audience would appreciate. That is if they don't have one already. The same goes for the synopsis. Many of them are translated by me, and at times, I've had to replace what was very obviously nonsensical machine-translated garbage. I am still in the process of learning Japanese, and translating is, well, challenging, but I can assure you that there are no lies, falsehoods, or made-up stuff on them. I will put any game descriptions that aren't mine between quotes and credit them appropriately. The screenshots are at 75% of their original resolution, except for one of the games where I could only play the widescreen version, so it's at 50%. If you're interested in a specific game, I'd advise for you to CTRL+F search for it. If you'd like to read my overall conclusions on this whole venture, search for My Thoughts and Conclusions. One last thing: I did not rely on machine translation tools to play these games. 1. Midnight Sleazy Train 2 EGS-Score: 74 (442) Atelier Kaguya TEAM HEARTBEAT Fap-o-meter: 3.26 (91) Saishuu Chikan Densha 2 Main appeal: chikan, forceful sex, group sex 最終痴漢電車2 "Touch her/Lick her/Verbally abuse her" "Some towns have legends of haunted houses or underground communities in the sewers. But in Takumi’s town, the ultimate urban legend is the Midnight Sleazy Train. Desperate for a spot on the train, Takumi waits by the station after hours. But he finds that you can’t just buy a ticket. Only by bringing the perfect female guest can you ensure permission to come aboard." http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=2444 Well, color me surprised! For some reason, this game has hundreds of votes, so I was curious about how that came to be. Perhaps a lot of people watched the H-OVA and became interested in the game that way? That's what I call a marketing success. But that's not all. The game itself is a pretty good nukige. Beyond the beautiful art and hot H-scenes, the game bolsters a pretty robust map movement system. Unlike most games where you wander at random, hoping you'll run into the characters, the game tells if there's someone at the place you're about to visit. It sounds like something straightforward, but it doesn't matter how good the game's content is if the system doesn't facilitate the access to that very content. Besides that, you also have verb-based interactivity during the H-scenes (filling up their lewdness level gauge), and this makes for perfect roleplaying. You're not just playing as a groping protagonist, you feel like the groper yourself. With all of these factors combined, it's no wonder that so many people enjoy this game and the series, yet to this very day. Though, if you're not that big of a fan of uh...gangbangs, you might not enjoy it that much. Maybe watch the H-OVA first and see if it's something you'd like. 2. Kidnapping EGS-Score: 65 (41) ZyX Fap-o-meter: 3.25 (4) Kadowakashi Main appeal: sexual slavery 拐 ～カドワカシ～ There was a certain man, an all-girls school art lecturer. One day, he came across Tomoko, a student who was being bullied, and saved her from her predicament. However, this very event triggered his innermost sadistic desires. Suddenly, he could no longer hold back, and forced himself upon her. To our protagonist who had awakened to his sadistic desires, Tomoko proposed that he sexually train one of her classmates, Yazawa Mizue, a pure girl, ignorant of the ways of the world. While being aware that Tomoko was hiding something, the protagonist decided to play along with her plan. Could he become such an individual that could rule others into submission? Not out of simple, mere lust, he earnestly wanted to find the answer to that very question. Will he really be able to rule over the heroines as if they were his own possession, or else, will he end up as nothing more than Tomoko's puppet? Wow, uh, what a fast development. They really get straight to the action, huh. Within a couple of minutes, the protagonist rapes one of his students, Tomoko. I'm actually not a fan of justifying this as "lol deep dark desires," but I guess that's the setup they were going for. The main meat of this game is to sexually train a trio of heroines. True to its name, with Tomoko's help, you kidnap two of your students and confine them in a locked room, starting off with Mizue. What really makes this game stand out is the sheer variety in H content. The heroine has stats, most of them sexually-related, and you have to raise them to allow for even kinkier play. You have to be strategic with your options to train the ultimate sex slaves. Though, if you suck, you can play on Easy difficulty. When I say variety, I mean that ALL of these options are available at the start (well, as long as the heroine "consents" to it). This means all kinds of play. You can choose to be kind or to be sadistic. You can make her service you or teach her pleasure through shamefulness. Ultimate freedom and variety. That doesn't mean you can just do anything. If you're too harsh on her, she'll collapse. Have this happen enough times, and you'll get a game over. So please, be responsible, and take good care of your sex slaves! When it comes to the staff members, the spotlight is on the game's artist, Mutou Keiji. He is responsible for the character design and art of many games I have played in the past, from Studio Triumph. It's extremely similar to JAST published Do You Like Horny Bunnies?. Perhaps they had the same teacher? It might seem odd at first, but I grew really fond of this style over time. The sex scenes are also animated, and for once, they actually look good. Nice! 3. Christmas★Present EGS-Score: 70 (62) Ail [Team Riva] Fap-o-meter: 3.09 (11) Christmas★Present Main appeal: BDSM, forceful sex, comedy クリスマス★プレゼント On the night of December 16th, with Christmas close by… In the corner of a town wrapped in the holiday spirit, our protagonist, Sajima Yuuji, was once again completely absorbed in picking fights with delinquents. All of a sudden, a girl in Santa Claus's garments fell from the sky, crashing into him. Carrying the collapsed girl who to his room, he raped her without waiting for her to regain consciousness. And so, the very next morning, this one Santa's apprentice came to her senses. Upon realizing the situation she was in, she was bewildered. "No...it can't be!" Not only did he deprive her of her precious symbol of maidenhood, but also the source of her powers: her precious Saint's Crest. And so, promising to return the crest, he set the following terms: "Until the day of Christmas, you'll be my slave." Abusing these powers, and laying his hands not only on this Santa's apprentice, but also his stepsister Yuzu, stepmother Honami, and other women…what will become of this year's Christmas? This was actually the game I was looking forward to playing the most. Considering this is the month of December, I really wanted to play at least one game that would really get me into the holiday spirit. It took me hours to figure out how to get it working, but man, was it worth it! While the description is a bit grim and dark, the game is actually the complete opposite. It's always fun and filled with comedic moments. The best way to describe this game would perhaps be "bakage" (silly game) due to its sheer absurdity and ridiculousness. Of note, the game has a sort of "affinity" system. Your actions will increase your "evil" points by a certain amount. So, you can abuse the powers of the Saint's Crest, which can make any wish come true, or you can be a good boy and play along as Santa's Little Helper, spreading happiness all over town. The art is beautiful, the sex is hot, the banter between characters is great. This game would make for the perfect Christmas present. 4. Defiled Girls - Campus of Used Goods Side Story EGS-Score: 70 (83) Rasen Fap-o-meter: 2.82 (17) Kizumono no Shoujo -Kizumono no Gakuen Gaiden- Main appeal: blackmail, forceful sex, group sex 傷モノの少女－傷モノの学園・外伝－ The "Kazaoto Academy Student Guerrilla Incident". An incident where roughly all survivors suffered greatly. The women, raped. The men who refused to rape, killed. And now, once again, a new humiliation play was about to begin... After the terrifying incident took place, part of the students who attended Kazaoto Academy transfered schools. And so, the stage changes to the preparatory school, Mizuto Academy, which two of the incident's victims attended. They were Oomura Takeshi and Shindou Narumi. In the middle of winter, when he had just gotten used to his new school life, Takeshi discovered a laptop which contained a video of Narumi being gang raped. While he was in shock at this devastating sight, his friend Kaneda Masaru saw the video by accident. Unflinchingly, Kaneda comes up with ways to use this video to blackmail Narumi. Without being able to refuse Kaneda's suggestion, Takeshi, while holding complicated feelings in his chest, ends up agreeing to blackmail and rape Narumi. And so, asides from Narumi, they gradually went on to defile the other girls surrounding them... This an insult game. This game has insult scenes, the protagonist and his buddy insult the girls...wait, what? Duh, I mean, rape. Yes, that's the word. This game is basically a side story of the original Kizumono no Gakuen. You don't really need to have played the previous game as it's not a direct sequel. Takeshi and Narumi's involvement in the previous incident is briefly explained - Takeshi was forced to film the girls being raped, under threat of being killed, and Narumi was one of the victims. Upon finding one of his old videos, he can no longer contain his excitement. I prefer this game to the first one because I like seeing the gap between peaceful school life and the moments of higher tension. That's not to say that the battle royale setting isn't thrilling though. It also feels like more of a personal experience, since you have one protagonist instead of multiple ones/multiple POVs. While you might initially think it to be a rape fest...it's just so much more than that. It capitalizes on human emotions: sorrow, anguish, sadness, loneliness...and instead of an abrupt chaotic state, it's gratifying to witness that transition. You can also expect exciting developments such as betrayals when you least see them coming. The H-scenes are well, pretty good. There's nothing that bonds friends together any more than doing the same girl at the same time...the story is about the defilement of the girls, as much as it is about the corruption of the protagonist's psyche. Though it helps to have a friend who is crazier than you. At least in this game, the "villains" actually feel like villains as they delve into their intricate plots, instead of your casual rapists. Of particular note, this game has a quite nice atmosphere, boosted by a quality soundtrack. Good faps are to be had with this game. 5. I'm a Booth Attendant - Heisaku and Kenta's Wild Tales EGS-Score: 65 (35) Interheart Fap-o-meter: 2.75 (4) Oira wa Bandai ~Heisaku & Kenta no Yume Monogatari~ Main appeal: voyeurism オイラは番台～平作＆健太の夢物語～ One day, a police detective suddenly barged in a certain popular public bathhouse that the protagonist was in charge of. "Dan Koutarou! You're under arrest, under suspicion of sexual assault!" With a clack, he was handcuffed. Several months passed, and after a hellish series of interrogations, his guilt was established. "Why, why am I the only one serving a prison sentence? Why are Heisaku and Kenta getting away scott free? But, it seems that is my fate... Even if they were to be caught, it does not mean that my punishment would go away, but... Is the public bathhouse that I inherited from my pops done for? I've really done something awful to him..." Man, I can't believe we came out innocent. I feel kinda bad about pushing the blame solely on Koutarou, but this too is part of fate, huh. Kou-chan, just sit quietly in your cell! So, we were cleared of suspicion, but what should we do from now on? You're right...for now, how about we go back to Koutarou's shop, and peek in the bath once again?! There's also videos of those women we filmed that we haven't used yet! To begin with, let's change bathhouse's name! Enter Heisaku and Kenta's Wild Tales! This is a side story, continuing off the ending of the first game. I really recommend that you play that game first so that you'll get the most enjoyment out of the story. Basically, this is a real-time, public bathhouse management game. You take in customers, and you can peek at them while they change clothes, are in the toilet or just chilling in the bath. You'll have to follow the schedule carefully and know the exact times when the heroines visit the bathhouse. The game's system is pretty helpful in this regard, but something like a tutorial would've been much appreciated. It takes some time to get used to the gameplay, as you also have to use and buy items that will help you in your peeping quest, but I find the experience to be worth the trouble. If anything, the banter between characters is pretty well-done. Most of the characters are actually adults, which is a nice change of pace. I also like that the previous game's protagonist went to jail since that's what happens when you do bad things. The game is pretty similar to the first one, so once again, that's probably where you want to start. Interheart themselves published a walkthrough for this game, and I wish I had noticed it before playing...oh well. 6. Please Teach Nanami and Konomi the ABC EGS-Score: 68 (101) Studio Ring Fap-o-meter: 2.61 (18) Nanami to Konomi no Oshiete ABC Main appeal: lolicon ななみとこのみのおしえてA・B・C "You're a college student on summer vacation. In your neighbourhood live two extremely friendly cute twin girls, Nanami and Konomi Nishimura. One day their mother asks you to tutor the two of them. "Nanami wants to study with onii-chan!" "Onii-chan, will you teach Konomi?" Of course, onii-chan immediately replies. "Sure, if you want me to, it'd be my pleasure." "He didn't say no... thank goodness." "Yay!" And thus begins your summer "lessons" with Nanami and Konomi." https://vndb.org/v1620 Alright, so uh...yeah. Despite the pretty art and cutesy voice acting, I found this game to be not much more than wish fulfillment for lolicon. To begin with, I'm not a fan of deredere, lovestruck heroines, but if you're into this type of content, you're probably going to enjoy it. 7. Lewd Little Sister BABY EGS-Score: 65 (65) Image Craft Fap-o-meter: 2.58 (13) Inmai Baby Main appeal: lolicon 淫妹BABY "The protagonist is a young man. He lives with his younger stepsister Mana in the same house, together brother and sister discover a lot of games (with sometimes interesting toys) and they have a lot of fun." https://vndb.org/v3153 Right, so, uh...yeah. There are two main points of interest in this game. First, it's the art or overall art direction. Not only are the H-scenes fully animated, but the sprites are also constantly changing very fluidly. The artstyle might seem simple, but it's nice and colorful. Honestly, this game very much feels like an anime, to the point I'd almost unironically call it an "anime game". The second point is the sheer amount and variety of endings. You have the freedom to craft the story as you please, but remember that everything you do has a consequence. Strictly speaking, I'd only recommend this to fans of the genre. 8. Children Milk Parfait EGS-Score: 66 (28) Shiritsu Sakuranbo Shouggakou Fap-o-meter: 2.57 (7) Kodomo Milk Parfait Main appeal: lolicon こどもみるくぱふぇ "You're a college student and while you love the many beautiful girls you see around you in college you prefer elementary school girls. Your girlfriend is 10 year old 5th grade elementary school girl Ai Hasegawa. She's happy to be your girlfriend but discovers that her best friend Aya Sakurai has a crush on you too! Ai loves both you and Aya so she decides it's ok to share! She brings Aya to your apartment and asks you to take her first kiss. Where will you go from there?" https://vndb.org/v4244 I swear, I'm not doing it on purpose! Anyway, for this game, I actually had to make a decision, since if I included the votes of the 2007 DVD release, it would score much higher. To make things fair, I decided not to. In my opinion, I found this game to be boring. The children don't act like children (more like naughty adults trapped in a child's body), and most scenes are teasing. I also thought that the OP was really catchy, it even forced me to get up from my chair and bust my moves for a few minutes. The UI is also extremely cutesy, which fits the mood of the game. 9. Matty, the youngest child EGS-Score: 61 (22) Complet's Fap-o-meter: 2.5 (6) Matty Main appeal: straight shotacon まってぃ Due to certain circumstances, Ryouta was sent to live with his parent's relatives, becoming a freeloader of the Okano household. However, in this house, he is treated as nothing more than the "youngest child". As the youngest child, he is constantly teased, submitted to unreasonable requests, and sent to do errands. However, he is simply not in a position where he can refuse. The eldest daughter and office lady, Sena; the second daughter and tomboy, Kana; and the youngest daughter and his classmate, Mana. These three, without exception, do as much as they like with their new younger brother. On the other hand, his aunt Kaori dotes excessively on him. In the middle of such an exciting daily life, embarrassing and fortunate events occur...what will happen to Ryouta? I actually completed two routes of this game...but it's difficult to call them routes to begin with. Okay, first of all, this is what will usually happen. At school, you get two alternating choices that decide what type of event will occur. When you're back home, you get four choices which are meaningless by themselves (e.g., kill time, go back to your room, watch TV, etc.), and if you're lucky you'll trigger some kind of event with the heroines. When it's time to go to bed, you can choose between going to sleep right away, going to the restroom, or reading a porn magazine (there are like four to collect, can you get them all?!). The first two of those choices CAN trigger events, but 90% of the time nothing happens. And this repeats every single day until the game ends. You have no idea which choices trigger what, you have to constantly savescum if you want to see events with a certain heroine (and of course, you'll have to try all the choices first, every time), and even then, more than half of the scenes are teasing. So all you're really doing is collecting events. I hope I was able to convey the frustration I felt playing this game. Why couldn't they have employed a map movement system, where you could just visit everyone in their respective rooms? Why this lazy, inane system? And even worse, the heroine I was aiming for doesn't even have an H-scene or a proper ending. The game just ends abruptly. What a piece of crap. Either way, the art by Mame is definitely the game's high point. I recommend that you read the prologue, download a complete save file, and check out the H-scenes. Or play a better game, by the same company. 10. Surrender - Ravished Body, Broken Heart EGS-Score: 60 (3) X[iks] Fap-o-meter: 2.5 (2) Shikkan ~Hazukashimerareta Karada, Oreta Kokoro~ Main appeal: BDSM, forceful sex, mystery しっかん ～辱められた躰、折れた心～ On a solitary island, somewhere in the distant seas, there laid a certain hospital. Upon embarking on a ship towards the island, and arriving at the facilities, the protagonist received a request from his brother, the hospital's director, to investigate the spy the who had snuck in. Taking on the guise of a doctor, he will interrogate the various suspects through any and all kinds of methods. However, in the midst of the swamp where anticipation and expectations intertwine, the evil that remained dormant within the darkness reared its ugly head. This is a mystery game where the objective is to uncover the spy and the island's other mysteries. Who is the spy, and what are they after? What secrets does this hospital hold? The navigation is done through a map movement system. I usually dislike these, but you can at least trust the characters to hang out in a specific place. There's the doctor who hangs out at her own office, the patient that stays inside her room, the two nurses in the nurse station and the nurse in the psychosomatic ward. If you check out the other areas, you can find out more about the game's world, side characters, and... special tools. When you talk to the characters, there's also this interactive system, kinda like the old verb-based games. Except that it's with nouns, people's names, locations and so on.In conclusion, the game's system is kinda annoying, and honestly, I don't feel like doing bad things to the characters when they're so lovely... The dialogue and voice acting are built in such a way that they actually feel like real humans. Speaking of voice acting, it's pretty good! You might recognize some industry veterans... I'd say that despite some annoyances, the journey does feel worth it. It's definitely a game I'd like to spend more time with. 11. Good Girl's Worries Counselling Room - Fantasy World's Immoral Guidance EGS-Score: 65 (15) Collection Fap-o-meter: 2.33 (3) Yoi Ko no Nayami Soudanshitsu ~Mousou Sekai no Haitokuteki Shidou~ Main appeal: group sex, forceful sex よい娘の悩み相談室～妄想世界の背徳的指導～ The game's protagonist manages a counselling website called "Good Girl's Worries Counseling Room". Officially, it is a well-renown website where volunteers give counsel to its female users, easing their worries. However, if you seize their trust by giving them appropriate advice, you will be able to meet them directly for a sexy time! In the meanwhile, the protagonist, upon reading the contents of their e-mails, flies off to a fantasy world, where his imagination takes hold of the events they describe. Essentially, when his brother collapses from overwork, by sheer coincidence the protagonist manages to find out that he was in charge of a counseling website. The gameplay is simple: you check your inbox on the website, pick the e-mail you want to read, read it, and then the protagonist imagines the H-events described on the e-mail. After that, it is your job to give the girls advice through a series of choices. I was initially disappointed, thinking it was kinda lame to not engage with the heroines directly, but I find this to be a really novel idea. They take what would be generic H-scenes and give them a backstory, aftermath, and the female character's perspective. The most fun I had with this game was reading those very e-mails and challenging myself to give good advice. For example, there's a high school student who talks about how several boys confessed to her at once, and she ends indulging their wish of wanting to create "pleasant memories" with her. I told her that she needs to value her body more and that she should be responsible and pick only one of the guys to be her boyfriend. It really feels like a very personal experience, where I am crafting my own story, almost as if I was actually talking to a real high school student. I did not get that far, but it seems, later on, you'll actually be able to meet the girls, so there's something to look forward to. After all, most of the game's H-scenes only occur inside the protagonist's fantasy world, not in reality...or do they? Another point I'd make is that while the art might seem kinda amateurish, I actually think it's pretty hot. I like it! 12. Bright Future - Wet 'N Messy 2nd Time EGS-Score: 70 (93) FlyingShine Black Fap-o-meter: 2.17 (12) Akarui Mirai ~Wet And Messy 2nd time~ Main appeal: forceful sex, group sex, wet and messy アカルイミライ Wet And Messy 2nd time "In Azami High School, the stage of this game, there is a rumor about a ghost. According to witnesses, that ghost is surprisingly beautiful and her scent is luscious. Masaki starts to examine the fact about the ghost and one day, he happens to talk with a girl who exists in the past, Sakura. But the fact is that she doesn't exist in the present. She was killed in the past and Masaki tries to change her future to save her...." https://vndb.org/v546 This is a mystery/drama game that also doubles as a nukige. You, as the leader of the newspaper club, are initially given the task to investigate the so-called "Honey Ghost." The rest is according to the description: you start talking to a girl from the past and then realize that she died. Your objective is to find out what happened and change her terrible fate to a bright future. But that's not all. There are also several peculiarities happening in the present. There's the mysterious psychic treatment (psychosomatic) school club, which is in fact just a front for a group of rapists. While you are busy with your investigation, be careful not to let the heroines fall into their grasp... True to its name, you can expect things to get really wet and messy, by a variety of fluids...be it water, essential oils (aromatherapy), milk, SEMEN...But while the art is beautiful and the story seems promising, the game actually suffers from the excessive H-scenes. Before you really have time to care about a heroine, you end up peeking on them having or being forced into sex by a group of guys. If the scenes were more spaced out, the game would actually feel like it has some tension. Overall, I Just feel like it's trying to do too many things at once. While you get plenty of choices, only very few of them branch out the story. Most of them just give you an alternate or slightly different scene. They don't really have an impact on the story. The series was rebooted as the Kurai Mirai (Dark Future) or Crime Rhyme series. By the name alone, you can see the new direction that they took with the games, which I'm not of a fan of. Because no matter which manners of cruelties they must endure, at least the title name "Bright Future" gives you the hope that there is a way for the heroines to avoid their awful fate...even if not entirely. I'm not a fan of these quasi-NTR gangrape games, where you're just walking around, peeking on others having sex, and not really doing much about it. That's not to say that some of the scenes aren't hot, especially if you like it...wet and messy. I like this scene where your previous choice changes whether the heroine calls you senpai or onii-chan. It's, uh, a nice touch since you're pretty much defining the relationship you have with her. 13. Mansion, the Prison of Lust EGS-Score: 60 (12) Girl's Software Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Ingoku no Yakata Main appeal: BDSM, sexual slavery, maids 淫獄の館 The ultimate immoral adventure game - combining extreme humiliation and sexual assault elements with the component of sexual slavery. Taking a remote western-styled mansion as the game's stage, train these beautiful and lovely maids into your sex slaves! Will you accept your fate, exhausting the limits of rape and sexual slavery? Or else, will you continue opposing those who hold you captive until the very end? If you were to take a single step within this mansion, you too would end up becoming its prisoner... First, I suppose I should start with what I liked about this game. The art is gorgeous when it comes to the character design and HCGs, drawn by one of my favorite eroge artists. The sexual slavery scenes are quite varied, but there's also a good number of vanilla scenes. You basically get the choice to give in to your "deep dark desires," or to defy your captor. To be honest, despite this being a nukige, what I enjoyed the most were the slice-of-life scenes and banter between characters. The music is a great mood-setter, but what made these scenes that much more enjoyable was the stellar voice acting performance. I'm sure that if you look at their names, you'll recognize several industry veterans. I'd point out Isshiki Hikaru, who voices the protagonist's sister in Cartagra as especially memorable. However, all of them were really good, and I also liked their performance in...other parts of the game. That's the thing, though. After spending all that time growing fond of the characters, I don't really want to do awful things to them. For this game's negative points, I'd say that getting a good ending is really difficult without using a walkthrough, and otherwise, it just gets frustrating. I also disliked the spontaneous H-scenes during the first part of the game. This is because they are all "dream sequences," more like showing a possible future for the protagonist. It feels as if those scenes were just thrown in there because the slice-of-life and comedy sections were too long, and they thought people would get bored if they didn't get some fap material, but eh. They feel entirely out of place because there's no context and no build-up for those scenes.Another point is that when I train my sex slaves, I don't like sharing them with others...especially dirty old men. 14. Stray Sheep - Disgraceful Confession Room EGS-Score: 55 (4) Panda House Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Stray Sheep ~Chijoku no Zangeshitsu~ Main appeal: BDSM, mystery STRAY SHEEP ～恥辱の懺悔室～ For yet but an ephemeral moment, a rape scene that makes one's sadist heart boil strongly with passion. A tale that does not confine itself to the boundaries of desire. In order to solve the mystery surrounding his sister's death, our protagonist headed towards St. Raffine Mission Girls' High School. And for the sake of his unsatisfiable, boundless desire, he infiltrates the school, takes on the mantle of a clergyman. In this place, there yet wandered innocent lambs...however, a feast that would push the very limits of shame and disgrace was awaiting them. These Stray Sheep will kneel before one who borrowed God's name to find the truth at any cost. Stray Sheep doubles as mystery and hardcore BDSM game. The protagonist makes use of his privileged position as the school's new Father to search for the truth, little by time, at times employing more forceful means. I did not find myself able to empathize with the protagonist and his revenge-filled heart. It's not that I'm not fond of revenge stories, but if you're going to do awful things to someone, then at least do it to people who deserve it. If one thing though, both the CGs and character sprites sure are pretty. Reminds me a bit of Mink's artstyle of that time. 15. Masquerade EGS-Score: 64 (14) Soft Circle Courreges Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) Masquerade Main appeal: maid, pure love story MASQUERADE Under the strong duress that was succeeding my father's legacy, my life resumed itself to dedicating myself to my work. Finding absolutely no joy to this monotous, repetitive routine, I soon found myself to be a mere husk of a man, caring about nothing but maximing profits and running a successful business. But then, there she was. Elena Garshis. Following the death of her mother, she was taken into my household, working as a maid. I want to see her scream and shout, to dye her pure white skin with my jet black desire. Yes, the very same Elena who does not lose her perfect, radiant smile, no matter what the task...If it's her, she will accept me with no protest. Over time, I came to be consumed by such feelings, and finally, I was able to satisfy my desires. Taking shelter from the coldness of Winter, a small story took place in a certain mansion. And with it, so did develop a pure yet depraved love that taught me the warmth and true meaning of Christmas, together with the one most important to me. While the setting seems to be grimdark, it's actually kinda wrong to call it a nukige. In fact, you could complete the game while avoiding most of the sexual content. I actually completed this game as it's relatively short, about one to two others long. I found the main story to be sweet and very much worth the time I spent with it. Some might find it generic, but I guess I'm fond of these pure love type of stories. You can choose to either engage in sexual acts with your maid or to have conversations with her about a variety of topics, getting to know her better. By sexual acts, I mean that you don't force yourself upon her and that everything is done consensually, even if the protagonist is in a position of authority. On that front, it's kinda weak as a BDSM/sexual slavery game, but I appreciate the variety of content and the hot HCGs. The negative side is that both these conversations and H-scenes repeat themselves. For example, if you want to unlock further conversations, you'll have to approach specific topics an X number of times. The problem is that the conversations are the exact same the second or third time, so you're gonna be skipping them. It's just annoying. Did they run out of content even though the game is so short? Why force you to repeat conversations? Anyway, you'll probably want to follow a walkthrough. The similar happens with the H-scenes, where you can unlock extra scenes or variations of the same scene. Anyway, this is a pretty decent doujin game if you like maids, sweet but kinda corny love stories, are willing to press the skip button half the time, and use a walkthrough. 16. A Naughty Doctor EGS-Score: 58 (7) Sol-fa-soft Fap-o-meter: 2 (1) H na Oisha-san Main appeal: lolicon Hなお医者さん "A somewhat naughty doctor has come to take medical examinations. He is supposed to inspect their bodies, but all he's doing is touching the young girls all over." https://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/work/=/product_id/RE039687.html So I booted up this game, which is unvoiced and has the same looping soundtrack all the time. And on the very first few choices, I hit a little girl, was sent to jail and got a premature Happy Ending. Great game. "HAPPY ENDING...hell if it is!" But it's actually an enjoyable game. You touch the characters in places where you're not really supposed to, but get away with it with some convincing persuasion, and eventually get to do a more direct inspection. I actually like this type of games where you play as a doctor and interact with a patient, deceiving them, and abusing their trust. For example, Studio Triumph's games. But well, this one doesn't even compare since the game is too damn short, as the whole thing is about 20-30 minutes long. Apparently, there's a voiced version, but I couldn't get my hands on it. The game is decent for what it is, but it's nothing special. I think there should've been more bad endings. 17. Jam 'N Limit - LOCKED/ROOM/CON/FINE/MENT EGS-Score: 53 (18) Studio Jikkenshitsu Fap-o-meter: 2 (2) Jam n' Limit ~Mis/shitsu/Kan/kin Main appeal: roleplay, forceful sex ジャムアンリミット～密/室/監/禁 Ever since I was a child, I had always questioned myself. Yes, I've always hated those so-called moral lessons. "Do not hate or harm others. Try to be mindful of other people's feelings. Plants and animals are living beings too, so treat them kindly." I wonder if there is anyone who actually puts these lessons in practice? To begin with, it is impossible for one person to adequately understand the feelings of another person. Also, treat other living things kindly, they say? Should such a line come from someone who eats meat? Who gave them the right to preach such hypocritical nonsense? Even if I were to narrow down the topic to human beings…for example, a person who raises funds for the sake of the homeless or those in greater need…I wonder if they're as great as they seem to be. Helping elderly people cross the street, giving directions to those who ask, offering your seat on the bus or train… wouldn't that be nothing more than feeding one's superiority complex, feeling of self-satisfaction, or just your typical social propaganda? Considering that I ponder these issues on a daily basis, I'm quite certain that society would just say I'm "going crazy". However, as far as I'm concerned, this is completely "normal" to me. If the world is to think that I've gone crazy, then I must prove that they are the ones who have gone mad. Thus, I shall find a suitable target for this "experiment", to show the world that I am the one who is normal. The only reason I went ahead and made the description this long is that this is the type of philosophical musings that are constantly present in the game. You can only imagine my surprise, playing this game after I almost considered skipping it - from the cover it seems like a generic nukige, and the score reinforces that assumption. I'm very glad I did not. Honestly, I can only do this game justice with a full review, which I'd like to do in the near future (maybe), so this will be a bit of a sample of what's to come. It comes with a fair warning though: this game isn't for everyone. It's probably only for sexual deviants like me. I've played this up until I was done with the first heroine's section of the story. Instead of having character routes, you "conquer" one heroine after the other, so you follow the protagonist's journey through madness. That is to say, this is more the protagonist's story than anything else, but you only truly understand the depth of his madness when you have a "normal" person as a reference. But that isn't all, as they too will find their own "madness." Your choices in-game have to do with the course of actions you take as much as the preparations you have to make. For example, for your plan to succeed, what kind of precautions should you take, what should you be most concerned about, how will you create the perfect locked room while avoiding suspicion, how will you psychologically corner your prey, how will prevent their escape, and what will you do in the event something unexpected happens. Accompanied by an in-built flow-chart, you'll be making these decisions as you try to avoid the game's multiple bad endings. I don't want to spoil the content of the H-scenes, but they've mostly based around..."personalized roleplay."For me, this is the best game I played this month and my personal master and masturpiece, or at least the one which surprised me the most, making this whole venture worth it. Please don't overlook it just because it has the "nukige" label. It could also be that the game simply left a lasting first impression, which lead me to overhype it slightly. Either way, I look forward to finishing it and publishing a more detailed review, whether it lives up to my expectations or not. Maybe. 18. Gifted Education Frenzy EGS-Score: 65 (89) Kuzuryuu Fap-o-meter: 1.93 (14) Eisai Kyouiku Main appeal: BDSM, sexual slavery 英才狂育 "Certain subjects being taught these days at college aren't always on the curriculum... Sex education is one of them. Here at our all-girls school, one male teacher takes it upon himself to best educate students in the ways of carnal knowledge. Using (and abusing) his authority, he lures the hottest students into his lair and has his sleazy way with them. In the end, these girls will learn some lessons they'll never forget." https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=8497 You might know this from the H-OVA "Study a Broad." With beautiful art from Innocent Grey's CEO Sugina Miki, renown artist responsible for Cartagra, Kara no Shoujo series and Flowers series, coupled with BDSM and sexual slavery themes, what could possibly go wrong with this game? Put simply, this game sucks. Sugina Miki's art and the seiyuu's talents were put to waste with this game thanks to an awful gameplay system. So, you have three phases during the day: morning, lunchtime, and after school. During those periods, you can visit different locations during the game, taking up one, two, and five time slots respectively. Oh, and I fail to mention that there are ten locations in the game? So, you have to visit the heroines at the RIGHT TIME in the RIGHT PLACE to trigger the events. What a load of crap. This game is the ultimate proof that no matter how good your game's content is (in this case, H-scenes), it doesn't matter if it's locked behind a nonsensical and overly complicated system. Sure, you have an idea of where the characters are likely to hang out, but who would've thought that the flower arrangement club member likes to hang out on the rooftop? So, definitely use a walkthrough. And don't try to pursue more than one heroine at a time, as the timeslots often clash. That's not everything, though. If you fuck up too much in the beginning, you can get a bad ending. And even if you follow a walkthrough, you probably won't get to see every event. This game is as sadistic to its players as it is to the heroines. I actually completed one of the routes - the twins. And there I witnessed some of the most stupid teen drama I ever had the displeasure of going through in recent times. At the very least, the H-scenes are hot, but I don't think it's worth seeing them without the context behind them. How frustrating! 19. Erosion EGS-Score: 74 (21) Black Package Try Fap-o-meter: 1.8 (5) Shinshoku Main appeal: sexual slavery 浸蝕 The protagonist, Kokubo Toshiya, is adopted by the loving Kitagawa family. In truth, he was in cahoots with the orphanage's director, and aimed to turn the women of this family into his prey. Despite conducting himself as a mature and overly polite child, Kokubo Toshiya secretly harbors dark thoughts, this twisted personality being a result of a traumatic childhood experience. Gradually, he starts to show his true personality just before starting his plans on his stepmother and stepsister. While his stepfather is away from home, Toshiya puts his plan in practice. Using a photo of his stepsister shoplifting, he starts with her stepmother, and soon he also reaches his hand on his stepsister. I actually edited the first part of this synopsis from vndb because it was filled with lies, so I claim it as my own. Ahem. This game unceremoniously starts with four H-scenes in a row. It sure doesn't waste any time, huh? On the very first scene, the setting is established. Toshiya, despite being of high school age, is somehow a hardcore sex slave trainer, all because his mother was a whore when he was a child. The orphanage's director is already his sex slave, as are other girls in school, and then he "infiltrates" this loving family intending to make them his sex slaves just for the lulz. You witness the mother, who knows the protag for nothing but a few days (or like, 10 minutes in-game), masturbate while calling his name. I mean, what the fuck. Already? She hardly even knows him! This protagonist is literally the equivalent of an isekai anime protag who one-shots everything in sight on the first episode. I did not find the art or the voice acting appealing either, but there's plenty of variety when it comes to the training scenes, I guess. If I had to mention any positives, it would be that the game is quite technically advanced. There's an in-built flowchart, a read text marker, the ability to jump to the next and previous choices, and voice lines on the backlog. All in all, this game is nothing more than rape fantasy and is completely disrespectful and demeaning towards women. 20. Last Order EGS-Score: 70 (50) 13cm Fap-o-meter: 1.75 (8) Last Order Main appeal: sexual slavery, group sex ラストオーダー The stage of this game is a family restaurant named flóreal. As an able floor manager, the protagonist enjoys the trust of his fellow staff members and respect of his superiors. However, there was another side to this man. He gets closer to the female employees while feigning kindness... By the time he has attained their trust, he discovers and exploits their weaknesses, and forcefully makes them his own possession. In reality, all of the women who work at this restaurant have already become his sex slaves. However, one day, two new job applications had come, and at that very moment, the protagonist had already decided on his next prey. Although she seems to be a quiet, docile girl, in reality, she keeps hidden an unparalleled lewd side of hers. Not letting this go unseen, the protagonist comes up with numerous ploys in order to completely put his new prey to shame. This is a game which seemed to be nothing more than a generic nukige, but ended surprising me. If there were such a thing as a theme for this game, it'd be moratorium, the postponement of social responsibilities. The protagonist and other characters deal with this issue on different degrees: feeling like they're growing up too fast, being afraid to become a full-fledged adult, or being too attached to things of the past. As someone finding themselves within this very period of transition, I felt I was able to connect to the game on a personal level, if even slightly. The sexual content mostly revolves around the use of devices for sexual training and bondage. With two new waitresses bolstering floréal's ranks, so are there two new prey for the protagonist to lay his hands on. I have mentioned this several times before, I believe, but I'm not fond of sharing my sex slaves. After the slaves' training is cumplete, you have them serve the customers, often multiple at once, and this happens when you had just thought they became yours. I'd say that might be why the fap-o-meter is so low, even though this is actually a quite decent game. 21. Intense Pregnant Belly - Senpai, Please Acknowledge My Child! EGS-Score: 41 (18) Acme X Fap-o-meter: 1.67 (3) Hageshiku Botebara! Senpai, Watashi no Ko, Mitomete Kudasai!! Main appeal: forceful sex, group sex, yuri 激しくボテ腹! ～センパイ、私のコ、認めてくださいっ!～ "It's a creampie without contraception!" Thus were the words of the savage brutes who targetted her… Nami, a pure and naive who always has her head up in the clouds, whose only noteworthy feature is her liveliness. Letting her heart be filled with high hopes and expectations, she begins attending the same school as the senpai that she admired. The very picture of a typical shoujo manga heroine, Nami lived her life blissfully ignorant of how truly scary men can be. However, nothing but terrifying fiends awaited her in this school, be them men or women. Her volleyball club adviser, fellow club members, classmates, dormitory roommates and the dormitory manager… Even the surrounding neighbourhood's bums, all of them constantly aimed at Nami's fresh and ripe body. Will she really be able to offer her chastity to her beloved senpai? First of all, I gotta ask. Who the hell came up with such a dumb title? This game is just a tasteless and senseless complete rapefest. It is disgustingly evil and cruel. I'm sorry, but I don't have much else to say. I dropped it because I'm not a masochist and there's hardly a redeeming factor to this piece of crap. I guess some people might be into it, but I'm not. Moving along. 22. Say Yah! Happy New Year 2003! EGS-Score: 55 (9) Authoring Heaven Fap-o-meter: 1.6 (5) Say Yah! 2003 Main appeal: comedy, straight shotacon Say Yah! 2003 This is a sequel to Say Yah!. This time around, in order to pay back Old Man Klaus, Aria has officially acquired her Santa Practitioner License, and distributes presents all over town to various houses. There reside a shotacon mother, a lesbian chick, and even a sister got dragged into it! This Christmas Eve, you'll be cumming down their chimney! This game is not only a sequel to first Say Yah!, but it also features characters from other Authoring Heaven and Complet's games, as they're both imprints of the same stock company. You can expect similar kind of content and humor from the same games. Basically, you have a map, and you choose which house to deliver presents to... in the form of sex. It's not really my cup of tea, but the game is kinda funny, if you're into that type of humor... 23. Married Woman Slave Coffee Shop 2 EGS-Score: 60 (20) Black Lilith Fap-o-meter: 1.6 (5) Hitozuma Dorei Kissa 2 Main appeal: sexual slavery, group sex, forceful sex 人妻奴隷喫茶2 "To think that you'd really take pictures like these...you're scum, human scum!" Wild beasts lust after the body of a beautiful married woman, who manages a coffee shop. With a new sacrifice being offered to these very beasts, they will squeeze out every single drop of these two cows' lewd tits! I played the first game too just so I could understand this game better. Thus this will serve as a review for both games. They're about 20 mins each, so that wasn't an issue. But well, there isn't that much to say, except that the games suck. On the first game, these three high school students with nothing better to do than wander around town manage to spot a lady shoplifting. And somehow, they make use of that knowledge to blackmail her into becoming her sex slave. After the first H-scene, it's scene after scene until the game ends. On the second game, this chick finds The Three Stooges talking about how much they love sex, and apprehends their sex toys. After calling them human scum, she ends up fapping with those toys inside the classroom, and she follows them to the coffee shop because she's secretly a colossal pervert, I guess. The rest plays out the same as the first game. The games have slight ero animations which kinda look good, but since it's a zoomed up close-up, they end up covering most of the CG. These games are cheap, they're too short, and they suck. 24. The Voice in the Night III - Summoning Circle Pentagram of the Three Desires EGS-Score: 60 (45) Black Cyc Fap-o-meter: 1.5 (14) Yami no Koe III ~Gobou San'yoku Mahoujin~ Main appeal: corruption of characters 闇の声III ～五芒三欲魔方陣～ "K is trapped within the academy, and recruits a passerby to find girls in various locations outside the academy in order to break the barrier. To accomplish this, she lends him her bag containing clothing and apparel with a degenerating influence." https://vndb.org/v3336 Wait, what is a Black Cyc game doing at the very bottom? To truly understand this, you'd have to play the first two games, as this one is part of the original Yami no Koe trilogy. Thankfully, I am perfectly suited for this review as I played all of the three games. However, this is a game that I would like to review at a greater length, so I'll try to keep this short. Basically, this game sucks. No, it would be more correct to say that this would just be an average nukige, if not for its preceding legacy. Because it bears the Yami no Koe name, anyone who plays this game expects high-quality nukige, the same as the first two. But it's the complete opposite. Here's how the gameplay goes: you have a box with several magical items, starting with five, and each one of them is supposed to awaken a dormant fetish within the heroines. Once you reach the second stage, you get up to ten items to use on the heroines. Sounds awesome, right? Well, not really. The heroines are only receptive to one or two of the items in each stage. Most of your time is actually spent trying out different items, getting a generic "this item wasn't very effective" message, reloading, trying out a new item, getting the same crap all over again until you get it right. That's not all. While a heroine might've been receptive to an item at first, it might happen that they will not be interested in it in the future. So, it's save, reload, save, reload, save, reload. How about I just quit, uninstall this piece of crap, and never play it again? Even worse, the protagonist doesn't interact with the heroines directly. Thanks to K's powers, he makes the item magically appear in front of the heroine, and they'll make up a suitable excuse on their own for why the item is there. What a load of bullshit. The only time you have sex with them is at the very end (if you managed to corrupt them all fully), on what feels like the developers' way of mocking and trolling the player. You know when you play a sequel to one of your favorite games, and it's complete shit? Except that here, you can't blame EA, like with its sudden takeover of Bioware franchises such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age. No, it's literally the same writers, the same director, the very same team. They knew what they were doing with this game, and it's nothing more than a quick cash grab. I hope I was able to convey my feelings on this matter accurately, and looking at the scoring, it's no surprise. Everyone felt let down by what is the weakest game of the Yami no Koe series. The only good point to this game is the amazing art, by one of the best eroge/nukige artists. Even Conjueror agrees! However, he gave the second and third games the same score, so I wonder if he actually played them at all. 25. Rape Secretarial Office 2 -Midou Shirou's Chapter EGS-Score: 65 (12) Maika Fap-o-meter: 1.5 (2) Ryoujoku Hishoshitsu 2 ~Midou Shirou Hen~ Main appeal: sexual slavery, mind control, forceful sex 凌辱秘書室2 ～御童志狼篇～ Midou Shirou manipulates females' body and mind at will, as the legitimate successor of the dreadful, evil fist, the "Obscene Vortex Core Fist". Of course, that is nothing but his secret identity. He worked as a respectable employee of a high-tech development enterprise, until... One day, the situation suddenly changed, ever since he was confronted with a mysterious conspiracy. He receives a missive from Yuuzuki Yukino, Internal Investigation Bureau's top agent dispatched directly from headquarters, to settle this incident once and for all. This game is about rape. It has rape in the title, and even the game's executable file is called "RAPE2.exe". Basically, you have Midou Shirou, who can use some sort of mysterious power, which translated literally would be something incomprehensible such as "Obscene Vortex Core Fist." Probably some kind of wordplay. When he says specific keywords, it triggers something within the heroines - there are no tools that need to be used, so it's just a special ability of his. And by special ability, I mean that it's a complete cheat. After you meet all the heroines, you can choose one of them to be your trained sex slave, as in, it's something that already happened. I found that to be interesting at first, but it's actually kinda lame. Let's say you were interested in a character, would you want to conquer her or would you want the game to gift you her as your already trained slave? Your objective is to obtain sensitive financial information and have lots of sex while you're at it. Your chosen sex slave will assist you in this task, so you already have six slightly different ways of playing the game. This all sounds awesome, but it's simply too easy. It's too easy to make the heroines fall thanks to Shirou's ability, having them call you "Master" by one H-scene's time. To begin with, the protagonist is already a cool stud, does he really need this power? He doesn't have any interesting motivations or something you can empathize with. This game is just a trashy rapefest, which puts its beautiful art to waste. 26. I'll Grant Your Wish - A Gift Received in Winter EGS-Score: 58 (17) High Soft Fap-o-meter: 1 (1) Kanaete Ageru ~Fuyu ga Kureta Okurimono~ Main appeal: group sex かなえてあげる～冬がくれた贈り物～ The protagonist is a university student, a complete bookworm who has been enamorated with reading ever since he was a child. He was confessed to by his bright and cheerful childhood friend, Shiraishi Yuri, and they became a couple just before highschool graduation. However, even to this day, the two have yet to engage in lewd acts, as Yuri has developed some sort of complex, thanks to her huge breasts. Ever since he was a middle schooler, he eased his worries and feelings of gloominess by engrossing himself in reading. Being immersed in that world, he was able to reduce his stress with the power of his imagination. However, as one would expect of one who had just become a university student, such a thing is simply no longer possible. His accumulating sexual desire. His increasing sexual fantasies. That wasn't only towards his girlfriend Yuri, but other women as well. However, one day, with the day of Christmas approaching. A group of women, introducing themselves as Santa Claus, suddenly appeared. "In exchange for helping us, we will make your dreams come true." And so, taking on a four-year period contract, the protagonist accepts their proposal. Will his sexual fantasies remain in the world of dreams, or else...? The premise is rather simple. The protagonist wants to have sex with his girlfriend, but it's totally not happening any time soon, and he faps to his sexual fantasies all day. Wow, he and I are not so different after all! So, these girls suddenly appear in his room and make the proposal as mentioned earlier. The story is well, as you could imagine, nothing special. It's nothing but senseless H-scene after H-scene, without any thread linking the events together. Put simply, it's just boring to read/play. You literally play as Santa's little helper, as you go from house to house, and research which present to give to the residents. Depending on the presents you pick, your relationship will improve with one of the heroines. This is a quite cumbersome system, and not very easy without a walkthrough. I wasn't able to find one... Since the protagonist is the only one who can see the girls, it could also be that he's simply had one fap too many, and none of this is real. Yep, that's probably it. 27. Let me fuck 'ya, teach! EGS-Score: 50 (11) Tryset Fap-o-meter: 1 (3) Yarasete! Teacher Main appeal: straight shotacon やらせてっ！てぃーちゃー "Ishibasha Yuuta is young, but already way too much interested in erotic things, to the point that at school he is considered a pervert! There is a new temporary teacher at school: her name is Riko Okamoto and she's there to assist the actual teacher during 2 weeks. She makes the perfect target for Yuuta to tease..." https://vndb.org/v5884 For a while, I thought I was playing a Complet's game, as this one has similar art, humor, and sexual content. You play as an overly perverted brat and constantly tease the new assistant teacher. Instead of proper routes, just like Matty (ugh), you collect events. The difference is that you trigger those events by moving around the school, as you pick the location you want to visit. I find this blind guessing system to be annoying, so I'd recommend a walkthrough once again. I actually liked the H-scenes, and I'm pretty surprised this game is sitting here at the bottom, especially when you consider that it spawned a whole series. Maybe Tryset were off to a bad start with this one, or the players just found the system to be too cumbersome. 28. Day-care worker <3 EGS-Score: 45 (9) Triangle-delta Fap-o-meter: 1 (1) Hobo-san Chu! Main appeal: roleplay 保母さんちゅ！ Kasuga Shin'ichi works at the Kazamizawa Daycare Center. Together with Osamura Natsumi and other daycare workers, their daily routine resumes itself to taking care of and supervising the growth of multiple children. One day, the cute and lively Shima Chiaki joins them as a new daycare worker. However, she ends up causing lots of problems as she can't get used to the various tasks related to taking care of the children's needs. As her senior on the job, Shin'ichi is instructed to put into practice a special curriculum, which they came to mention as "night training". Witnessing Chiaki in low spirits over not being able to perform at her dream job, he steels his heart in order to turn her into a proper daycare worker. Thought I'd start by giving a warning that, despite the protagonist's profession and the game's setting, all participants in sexual activities are consenting adults. That already makes for strange setting though. Who thought about mixing up daycare work with...roleplay? The worst part is that they do a pretty poor job at explaining the need for such a thing in the first place. I mean, I don't think it helps her understand the kids' feelings any better by changing adult diapers or making her piss on the ground. Overall, the setting just feels at odds with the game's sexual content, but it does make for an interesting premise, I guess. I do commend them for trying out something different, and I do find the H-scenes to be not that bad... The main highlights are the beautiful OP (no need to listen past 2:10) and yet another casting by Isshiki Hikaru. 29. Petite Idols - Disgraceful Fan Appreciation Day EGS-Score: 52 (14) Black Lilith Fap-o-meter: 1 (3) Puchi Idol ~ Chijoku no Fan Kansha Day Main appeal: lolicon, cosplay, forceful sex, group sex ぷちアイドル～ちじょくのファン感謝デー "It's time for fans to punish these two little selfish idols!" https://vndb.org/v6957 This is just bad. I feel like I really hit the bottom of the barrel with this one. It comes with a really stupid reasoning for revenge: the two idols are cheeky and foul-mouthed and treat their greasy, sweaty, disgusting otaku fans with the disrespect they deserve. But then came fan appreciation day... 30. Nestle Close III - Manager Hibiki EGS-Score: 70 (3) Haikara Kissa Fap-o-meter: 0.5 (2) Nestle Close III Main appeal: onee-san, big breasts, glasses Nestle Close III "A pretty girl who is a daughter of your apartment house's owner is asked to take care of the building during the owner's two weeks absence. How do you get along with her? https://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/work/=/product_id/RE024315.html I physically cannot play this game, as short-haired heroines with glasses are the worst. Next. 31. Soft and Tender Lesson EGS-Score: 50 (11) Trabulance Fap-o-meter: 0 (1) Pururn Jugyou Main appeal: breasts, big breasts, big tiddies, tits, oppai ぷるるん授業 The ultimate game for lovers of huge, enormous breasts! The heroines are all female teachers, mature beauties featuring a bust size of over 100cm! As it is the specialty of Trabulence, the H-scenes are fully packed with all sorts of juicy big tiddies! As advertised, the heroines have enormous breasts to the point that it's sure to cause back problems. If you're into this type of thing, you might get some enjoyment out of it. However, I found the game to be a completely average nukige. Of particular note, there is a toggle correct choice indicator. Interact with the same heroine enough times, and you'll have sex with them. Wow, now that I put that in words, it seems that'd describe most games. Either way, despite being thrown to the very bottom, it's certainly not THAT bad. Then again, there's only one vote which is... mine. My Thoughts and Conclusions First of all, thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the very end. Or perhaps you're one of the people who scrolled down to the very bottom? It's alright, I don't blame you. The truth is, this format sucks. Usually, you'd first find a game you like, play it, and then maybe review it, not the other way around. This would've worked much better if I had a team of perverts working with me. Each one of us could pick a game that we might like, play it, and then review it. This was way too much work for one person, as this was all my own, original commentary, but I did my very best for the quality not to suffer. The very idea of reviewing eroge and excluding nukige would be ridiculous, as despite bearing the "stigma" that comes with the nukige tag, there are some pretty good games amongst those that I reviewed. Making people aware of that was my initial objective, and I hope to have realized it. Not surprisingly, there's a good number of games focused in particular fetishes. I think it's interesting that there wasn't a single Netorare game amongst these, perhaps the genre hadn't taken off yet. There's a big divide between games with consensual sex and games with forceful sex. The first usually focuses on lighter fetishes, while the second group often goes all the way with hardcore sexual slavery. I play my games on fullscreen, so I wasn't bothered by the resolution. And there are plenty of games with beautiful art, mood-setting soundtrack, and stellar voice acting performances nonetheless. The most significant conclusion I'd take is that most of these games, well, suffer from too much gameplay at times. Like I've said on my very first review, it doesn't matter how good your content is if the system is cumbersome in a way that players have too much of a hard time accessing it. You can have a map movement system like Eisai Kyouiku's, which forces you to check a walkthrough every 10 seconds, or you can have one like Saishuu Chikan Densha 2's, where you can worry less about optimization and focus more on having fun. The second is one where the creator really thought about the player experience, how would people actually feel playing the game. I also found it interesting that most protagonists are actually adults. There are several university students, but you have them do all kinds of jobs: ordinary salarymen, teachers, daycare worker, clerk, doctors, idol manager, grocer, businessman, restaurant floor manager, tutor, even a priest... You also have many different kinds of settings, as if everyone was trying hard to carve their own niche. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside thinking about how everyone, even the little guys, was working hard, giving up precious time during the holiday season to provide us with great fapping material. God bless you. Oh, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t talk about Saya no Uta. Well, it’s the title that needs no introductions, so I decided to go ahead and not talk about it at all to make my job easier. The point of this article was to have short reviews and summaries for lesser known games of the month, so I can’t just feature the most popular ones and not or just dismissively ignorant talk about the rest. The fap-o-meter is astonishingly low, which is complete blasphemy. This is one of the hottest english published eroge out there, with also one of the best translations available. There’s a story about how Makoto wouldn’t sell his translation until his writer parents approved it, so you can be certain of its quality. As a closing statement, please, by all means, do try some of these games and enjoy yourself to your heart's content. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me, please go ahead and message me or leave a comment below. As always, thank you for reading, and I appreciate any and all feedback.

You rode through a great journey. The emotional high stays with you throughout the day, and maybe the next, slowly phasing out. Sometimes you think back to just how good it was and reminisce in fond memories. You start another visual novel. You hope it'll be as good as the last. . You read an unpolished gem. You found some interesting parts, narrative patterns, or thoughts in the novel that you enjoyed. While parts of it may have dragged or been unpolished, there's a certain charm to it all. You want to shill it to all your friends so they can enjoy it too, and start to think about whom it would be good to recommend it to. You look up other works by the author... . You read something you ultimately didn't find amazing, but think will be interesting to discuss with people. You don't feel like you wasted your time, exactly; maybe you used it suboptimally, but how could you know? You know more about the medium and can draw more parallels with other works when talking to other people deeply into the medium. . You read something pretty garbage. You find solidarity with other people in talking about just what makes it such trash. It lets you see how storycraft can go wrong, and improves your pattern recognition to help you avoid something so disappointing again. You know the medium better, have better picking skills, and have something new to meme about. . You read a Fuwanovel forum post by a fifteen year old trying but failing to sound profound, and cringe. You contemplate suicide, but eventually decide that it is not worth it, even though something tells you you have just contracted a painful form of malignant cancer. You write a forum post in reply

They ended up employing a number of new translators, 5 I think (including me). I know they're doing LNs, manga and VNs, but I don't really know what the experimental titles are as I've been put on a regular VN translation which suits me perfectly since that's all I'm interested in.

Hello everyone, I'm here to deliver what you've been waiting for: the partial patch for the game! Though I said end of the month, to think I'd actually upload it on the very last day of the month, and for some of you, it's already April 1st... But even if it's April Fool Day for some of you, I assure you that this update is not an April Fool joke . Now then, let's talk about the patch: - The patch contains the first 3 chapters of the game: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2. - All tutorial images and basic info images are also included in the patch. Though there are still some Japanese texts in them, all of the help texts have been translated. I'm sure they'll prove helpful if you decide to play the game with this patch ^^. - Unfortunately. we weren't able to finish the Menu Images in time for this patch. However, you can use ZAP Interface Patch in case you need them. Though there are some differences, they shouldn't be any glaring differences. If you do use ZAP patch, please apply their patch first, and apply ours on top. - While the God Medal Icons aren't translated, their descriptions are fully translated. If you use ZAP Patch, some God Medals icons will be translated. However, their translations of the God Medals' names may be different from ours. - The Map Icons aren't translated, but the Stage Names when selecting stages are fully translated. If you find it hard to navigate like this, please use ZAP Interface Patch. Though there will be differences, they should be similar enough for you to understand where to go next. - The missions, sub-missions and dialogues for each stages are also fully translated. All units and their descriptions on the battlefield are also translated. - Since the Append is not fully translated, it is not included in this patch. This also includes the Loser's Maze. That's why please remain on the winner's side for now . How to apply the patch (for both this patch and ZAP patch): All you have to do is extract the patch(es) in the root directory of the game, and it should work fine. Please tell me if it doesn't work for you, I'll see what I can do. I think that should cover everything in this patch. Please keep in mind that this is not the final version of the translation. We'll continue to improve it, so there may be some differences between this patch and the final patch. Please think of this patch as a teaser of sort, a taste of what is to come . Though I've played through and checked this patch, I may still have missed something. If you notice any problem (typos, text display problem, etc.), we'd appreciate it if you could take a screenshot and send it to us. We'll fix it for the next patch. Any feedback is very welcome. That's why if you use this patch, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what we should improve/change. Finally, here's the link to the patch (it's the same link to the MEGA drive in the OP): https://mega.nz/#F!MstRHI6S!bQVaRTSLnwQPNjYuCJKfpw That's all for this update. Thank you for reading, and see you next time ^^.

I am here to announce that the most recent announcement of an announcement was announced in error. Unfortunately, we're still making the finishing touches on some of the promo materials. We may have a more accurate announcement of an announcement at a later date, but not until we know exactly what day we can make said announcement. I am also announcing that we will be much more careful about announcing announcements going forward. We are very sorry for the disappointment this brings. It was an honest mistake, and we'll do better in the future. We won't say "we'll never announce an announcement ever again!" because it's honestly very helpful to prepare people and get them paying attention, rather than surprise announcing stuff. We promise we'll be more responsible about this from now on, though.

well.. after long time im became silent reader finally i decided to make fuwanovel's profile and i think i should introduce myself tbh it's my first time making profile so i dont have vndb or mal account, or should i make it ? im a fan of moege and i hope you guys can recommend me some good stuff nice to meet you all and sorry for my bad english

FuwaChanges A public log where you can see all changes that is made. Today inactive moderators will be removed. Sad to see such big part of them inactive. but not surprising. They are welcome back to the positions if they come back. Moderators removed : Nohman, Eclipsed, Helvetica standard, Flutterz and our oldtimer global mods Nosebleed and Down. Mr Poltroon was promoted to Global mod, Plk_Lesiak have been added to Board moderators. Some minor forum cleaning have started. Some of the sections have been abit clutterd with pinned threads, for example Helvetiva´s Renpy guide have now been moved to the mainsite. More things to come. This first post will be fairly short, There is alot more worked on behind the scenes and as things get done it will be added to this thread. i have slowly started adding VN´s and change things on the mainsite and the forums. But its a big list and im just 1 person. Find any errors or something else to report. use the Report & Request a change section

Status update Prologue progress: Translation: Complete Editing: 1798/2120 QC: In progress Overall progress: Translation: 5043/43896 Editing: 1798/43896 @crying joins us as an editor and QC. We will release a partial patch soonTM, once the prologue editing and QC are finished, anyone interested in helping us proofreading the partial patch will have the benefit of having early access, so please contact me if that's the case.

Hello, Good-bye You can buy the game uncensored at NekoNyan's website "Toubu Kaito" That is the fake name assumed by a young military officer from the United Provinces of Japan. He has been tasked with infiltrating Tenshudo Academy, located in Special District Morino, impersonating a transfer student. He is to cast aside his former identity, and 'become' Toubu Kaito. Special District Morino, also known as the neutral zone, is a region of historical significance, and right now, it is the one area which 'both Japans' have their eyes on most. Upon first entering Morino, Kaito decides to walk around and familiarize himself with his new home. After visiting many different places, he then ends up in a park harboring a memorial statue that honors a certain peace treaty. Kaito wanders a little too far, and finds a remote area where he is presented with a vast flower bed that covers every inch on the ground. And he is not alone. There is a single girl there, tending to the flowers. "Why hello there. How do you do, sir. Ah, I suppose I ought to say 'good evening' considering the time of day. " The girl gently smiles at Kaito, and asks for his name. "Toubu Kaito's my name... at least, it will be during my stay here." He responds to her, quickly, and in doing so, inadvertently reveals his 'secret.' Little did Kaito know, but this slight 'slip of the tongue' would be the single action to put an end to his hapless fate. One tiny mistake, and his life forever changed... "If it was a mistake that came about through love, then I think there can be nothing more wonderful than that." [From The English Website] *Game Info (Read before using the guide!)* HGB has very few options to choose, the only thing that you have to keep in mind is that Koharu only becomes available after finishing the initial routes and clicking 'continue', also keep in mind that after finishing a path and starting a new game the choices will have changed to the same options as behind the continue screen. The game also has an built-in achievement system and a mini-game, both are located at the bottom of the guide. *Route-Ending Walkthrough* Yukishiro May Rindou Natsume Saotome Suguri Hiiragi Koharu Only becomes available after finishing all of the above. Select 'Continue'. *Achievements* *Find Azrael! (Minigame)* Credits: Based on Otaku Lair's guide.

Still working on the playtesting part. I'm checking things on my end first, but I'm getting closer to finishing it. Then I can send to QC. Hopefully, we can still release the partial patch by the end of the year. Fingers crossed!

This article and its author have recently caused an uproar in many discord communities, because the topic of this list seems to come up at any given moment. So, I'll try to provide some context regarding this list and be as civil as possible. My objective is not to be a bully but to give this article a fair analysis. First of all, I must commend the quality of the writing. Whatever one might say about the content, it is without a shadow of doubt well-written. The main issue is how the author's objectives are in conflict with each other. This is supposed to be an introductory article for beginners, members of the animanga community. However, the article is extremely lengthy, each entry worthy of being an article of its own. People have a short attention span and by the time most people are done with reading 2 or 3 entries, chances are they're already tired of reading it. If your objective is to convince, then keep it short. Or rather, cut the entry number. Perhaps a top 10 or even a top 5 would suffice. Regarding the entries themselves and the main objective...they don't really match. Half of these titles are UNTRANSLATED, which is already going to turn away a big chunk of the community. Second, pretty much all of these titles are Long or Very Long. Trust me, hardly anyone would be willing to lay down 50 or more hours for a hobby they're not invested in yet. How about a few shorter titles, such as Narcissu or Planetarian (off the top of my mind). They are short, sweet, have no filler and leave a deep lasting impression. They also don't have Sexual Content. You also excluded titles which are popularly known in the anime community, such as Clannad, Steins;Gate, Fate/Stay Night and Higurashi. People are more likely to find interest in reading the source material of something they already watched and liked. And then, the exclusion of moege and gameplay eroge. Like it or not, moege are some of the best-selling games of the medium (second to doujin H-RPGs, I'd say). If the objective was to attract newcomers from a new community, there is absolutely no reason to exclude one of the most popular ""genre"" of visual novels. Gameplay eroge are the closest to videogames and might be just what newbies need to make the transition to full-fledged text-only visual novels. I'm not going to comment on the entries themselves. After a certain point, they seem to be choosen sort of arbitrarily, merely there to fill the empty space. Honestly, anyone could've picked these titles, but that's not what's important. If I had to comment on one of them, it would be YU-NO. YU-NO was one my favorite eroge for a period of time. It's also one of the highest rated titles of erogamescape. When you have half-truths and misinformation, others are going to believe it if it's this well-written. This is something that concerns me, as one could think of modern bloggers as the historians of old. But to be honest, what bothers me the most is how this entry in particular is quite offensive to the medium as a whole. Not only does it ignore the hundreds of games that already existed in other platforms, such as PC-88, but it dismisses them as "cheap pornography". Just because you read two or three random nukige that JAST or whoever it was gave a bad translation 15 years ago, it doesn't make it true. Sadly, there are many great stories yet to be translated which most likely will remain so, due to engine issues and older art which isn't appealing to the modern gamer who plays everything in 4k 120FPS. To be fair, this title is heavily overrated. The interactivity is incredibly infuriating - not only is it a verb-based game but you literally have to pixel hunt and randomly guess where you should go next. Not only that, but you can't save at will. Because of this, the player is forced to default to a walkthrough. Due to this and many other games with terrible choice systems forcing people to look for walkthroughs, we use walkthroughs even for games with good, carefully crafted systems. As for the content of the game itself, multiple route mystery wasn't anything new at the time. None of the routes really stand strong on their own, except perhaps the stepmother route, the concept of this route having been done better on other games at the time. The sci-fi aspect of the game only exists so that - how cool is that? To finish this rant regarding YU-NO, let me tell you something interesting: one of the most important arcs, the whole emotional hook of the epilogue wasn't even written by Kanno himself. The current translation has different versions of the game mixed together, so you have the protagonist rejecting sex with a character in one line, and then deciding to go forward with it in the very next instant. If I had to say anything else, it would be how you portray YU-NO as an important step forward for the eroge industry and explain its historical value, but you chose the cover from the remake. The main issues, as pointed out by many others, is that this article is overly ambitious. You have only started reading VNs approximately a year ago and you have only read about 20 titles or less, yet decided to create a recommendation list of a higher number. You recommend titles that you haven't read and can't read (japanese). While there is some original content (SubaHibi and Danganronpa reviews), the description of the remaining entries is a mixture of opinions held by different people. If I wanted to read Conjueror's Sakura no Uta review or kastel's rants, I could do it, they already exist in other places. You could very well have started with a smaller project, publishing reviews of titles you have read with your one and only opinion. I know I might have been quite harsh, but I'm honestly tired of this topic being brought up every couple hours, no matter where I hang out. That and I'm not sure if you're really interested in the advice of others or if this is just to show off, but so be it. I gave my two cents, and I hope to not have to comment on this further. Good luck.

This is an opinion that has been a long time in forming, but I am coming around to an opinion that the more simplistic viewpoints I've possessed on the differences between American approaches to storytelling and Japanese ones are somewhat off the mark. Note: This is a rant, it should be treated as a rant, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is because it is my brain leaking into text on this blog. First, my original opinion: To put it simply, it was my belief that the Japanese had a tendency to go for emotional surrealism (in other words, emotional bombardment) and visual excess (exaggeration) to tell their stories. In opposition, Americans tend to go for the 'gritty and realistic', with straight out bullet to the head realism. This was a generalization that, while based on my experiences with Japanese video games that told a story (both VNs and jrpgs) and Western games that more or less tried to do the same (Isometric RPGs, Bethesda-style games, etc), was never meant to be an absolute statement but just a general opinion of the tendencies I'd encountered. Second, my new opinion: First, I've come to the conclusion that American gaming companies don't know how to tell a story anymore (since Bioware has gone crappy, Obsidian is about to get absorbed/has been absorbed by a company that has no idea of what it is doing, and the Witcher was made by Polish people). Second, the Japanese seem to suffer from a similar malaise... and the source is, quite ironically, fairly similar in the cases of mainstream games. It is the disease I call the 'MMO virus'. Yes, you who actually read my blog know my opinion on online multiplayer games and what they have done to erode storytelling games in general, but my recent conclusion is that this erosion has actually reached a critical point in the last five years. Rebellions against the progression of this disease have occurred (Tales of Berseria, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Nier: Automata come to mind for the Japanese, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire for America), but these have been relatively minor upthrusts against the toxins released by the cloud of mission-based 'stories' you see in games nowadays. Bethesda has also contributed to this plague (fetch quests and hunt the monster quests being a common plague for them as well), and it seems like every time I turn around, I see another game trying to tell its story through an obvious mission or quest system is sitting right there. Sure, the systems had their roots in D&D games, but the way they've developed is the result of the plague that infected the world using games like WoW as its vector. I first began to see signs of this disease back in the PS2 era, though it was mostly limited to 'high end' games at the time, like Final Fantasy (XII having essentially repurposed and altered XI's MMO battle system for a single-player model), I was honestly horrified to see how easy it was to let myself get led around by the nose from objective to objective in hopes that I'd find the story in there somewhere. The problem was, once the objectives became my reason for playing (as was inevitable, because that is the tactic they use to draw you in), I increasingly realized that I couldn't enjoy what story was being told, because I was impatient to get to the next objective, even though I didn't find any of that searching for objectives to be fun in the least. VNs suffer from a different set of problems. While jrpgs and western games suffer from the simple fact that the current generation of makers grew up obsessing over pathetic attempts to graft stories onto multiplayer games, VNs suffer from the fact that the best and brightest of their creators are... getting old. Hell, some of them even died in between projects. Worse, no one of equal capability has replaced them, leading to an unfortunate confluence of near-universal incompetence and corporate inability to grasp the reasons for failure and fix it. No, I'm not saying that all new VNs suck. Hell, if they all sucked, I wouldn't still be trying to go back and play them, like the burnt-out junkie I am. No, my issue is that there is a sudden dearth of developed talent within the world of VNs that has gotten horrible in the last five years. Most of the major names are retired, have moved on to 'greater' things, or are dead. Shumon Yuu is silent, Hino Wataru seems to have gone underground, Masada is probably off in his own little world, Fujisaki Ryuuta is circling in place, Kurashiki Tatsuya is off indulging his inner sadist with half-assed games, Kazuki Fumi can't seem to stick with one thing long enough to make it great since Akeiro Kaikitan, and Agobarrier is three years dead. That isn't even mentioning all the formerly major names that have just decided to retire without telling anyone or got hired away by mainstream video game companies. What is replacing them are primarily LN writers... who, unfortunately, tend to write like middle school street kids on crack (and not in a good way). They often have great ideas, but they are fuzzy about execution and lacking in technique. As a result, you get a bunch of third-rate one-off VNs that no one really likes. Artists aren't a problem. There will always be plenty of skilled otaku artists who can draw h-scenes. The issue is and always will be writers... because it is the writer that decides whether a VN will become remembered for years to come or be dropped back into the dung at the bottom of the latrine.

Live footage of rare JOPs hearing the bimonthly autistic EOP scream over some license Today I got to know that my blog's reader base has been very sad that my blog has been so quiet for a long time so I decided to do a little update. This time I'm gonna list you some reasons why you might want to learn Japanese! (Start it today or you will never start it just like this blog post) These reasons are not in any order (are) Can play Idol M@ster Shiny Colors (or any other idol game but Shiny Colors is the best one) Number 2: Kotose. Can become a true believer of the true god Can get all the Yuuko goodness (get cucked!!) Have a meme I made earlier this week but got deleted for """derailing""" CoC Get to know the difference between Keyakizaka46 and Keyakizaka46!! There is a difference trust me. Other idols in general such as Nogizaka46 and AKB48 Can watch all the idol bingos. Always wanted your favorite anime to have 10 seasons??? Well idolbingos do have more than 10 seasons and are of the same size as anime seasons! No more shitty scans or subs. Only godtier real source material. (Eats all your money but who the fuck cares just work a little and be rich xD) Make bad memes Get vampire GF Can make shit lists like this Did this motivate any of you my lovely readers? I hope it did! Now smart ones of you might have noticed where is all the eroge!??? Well to be honest eroge is not worth it. It fucking sucks and so does the community. Idols, soshage, anything, is better than eroge. Don't do eroge kids. Peace out!

Today my Fuwa account turns exactly 1 year old, and, in catgirl years, that means I'm already legal and ripe for the taking for anyone interested It's been a fun time, though it seems like it was yesterday when I sign in. Time sure flies by huh I still clearly remember when I wrote my introduction post. Anyway, I'm glad I entered Fuwa. I've had the chance to discuss the adventures in VN land with great, super friendly people and that made it all the more enjoyable. So, for the year to come, thank you for everything and yoroshiku onegai shimasu ne.

Hello everyone, I'm back with another progress update. The translation for chapter 8 is now under way. Currently, about 10-15% of the script has been translated. As for the translation check, Danywar is continuing with his work on chapter 1. We've been quite busy so there hasn't been much progress, but I'll try my best to work on it whenever I can get some free time. I think that's about it this time. Thank you for reading and see you next time ^^.

Translation Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 100% (2691/2691) Tonoko Route - 100% (8709/8709) Branch School - 35% (2039/5846) Total - 22% (15229/68206) TLC Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 6% (157/2691) Branch School - 3% (187/5846) Total - 3% (2135/68206) Edit Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 6% (157/2691) Branch School - 25% (1441/5846) Total - 5% (3360/68206) Ittaku has fully translated Tonoko's route. He'll be moving onto Miyabi's soon enough, but he can relish in this great achievement right now. Branch School in terms of both TL and Editing is going strong as well. We are still looking for a permanent TLC to work on this project. Please PM me if you're interested in working as a TLC for this project. That's all for this week. See you in another couple of weeks.

Since I got explicitly called out here, I feel somewhat obligated to comment... I don't think of myself as a purist at all, nor do I think there's such a thing as a perfect translation. I do still think there are both good translations and bad translations, and it doesn't look like that's really being debated here either (though I imagine the defining characteristics of a good translation would be very hotly debated!). Just to offer two common arguments for "good" translation over "bad" translation which I haven't seen mentioned here: I think a bad translation is an insult to the original writers. VNs are in fact written by professionals, and the vast majority of those professionals work their ass off to produce something worth reading. I think it's unfair to them to produce a translation which is obviously lower quality than the original. And, why is that...? A good writer makes the story beats land, makes you giggle at the jokes, and occasionally reduces you to a blubbering mess of tears. If you're basically just reading VNs to see the CGs and the sprites, to listen to the music, and maybe to kind of understand what's going on overall, well, you're entitled to enjoy things the way you want to. But me, I really like reading, and I want to get the same full-color experience when reading a game in English translation that the Japanese readers got reading the original. That means, at a high level, that the logical flow from line to line needs to be maintained, that the result needs to be true in spirit and in content to the original. My go-to example is always that the jokes need to still be funny. Look, everyone can believe what they want to believe, and I don't think anyone here is going to change their mind. But regardless of what some readers may think, I do think that translators should care about their writing quality. If you think you're translating something and you're not worrying about delivering an equivalent experience, then I think you aren't doing your job.

Hello everyone, I'm back with another progress update. About the translation, I've finished with the translation of chapter 7, just in time for it to still be within this month XD. I'll start working on chapter 8 soon. As for the translation check, Danywar has already gone through the prologue. He's currently working on chapter 1, with about 10-15% of it already done. After all the good news, there's the bad news. We still haven't been able to find an Editor or Image Editor yet. I'll try my best to assemble the whole team as soon as possible. For now, please wait a little longer. Of course, whether or not the team is fully assembled, we'll continue working on our own parts. Worst case scenario, we'll put some kind of edit in ourselves and release the patch XD. But well, let's hope it won't come to that. I think that's about it for this update. Thank you for reading and see you next time ^^.

So just to give an update: I finished translating Saint Irene/Lavria's chapter (Chapter 3) last Friday ^^. Just didn't get to post an update here until now. Next up would be Chapter 4 (Licia's chapter), and this is going to be the longest chapter to translate with about 12500 lines, so yeah, it's going to take me quite a while to finish translating this. As for partial patch-wise, I'm still doing final checks on Chapter 2 (Eris' chapter) before handing it to QC. QC on Prologue and Chapter 1 (Fione's chapter) is more or less done, so just Eris' chapter left and some final checks before we release the partial patch

Some of my english visual novels More of my english visual novels Grisaia complete box English visual novels with NSFW cover Japanese visual novels for PC More japanese visual novels for PC Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box My japanese visual novels for PS Vita My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4 I know Neptunia is not quite defined as a VN, though it does have long VN segments and I just wanted to add it here at the end As you can see I have quite a lot.

The problem with thinking 'prose' is all about muh chuunige or whatever is that much of comedy is just as dependent on good unmetered writing as whatever the so-called prose nerds like. Would Grisaia's common route, which could well have continued into moe style routes rather than what it actually does with a few tweaks, really have been close to as good with a lame translation? Good prose doesn't have to mean big words or descriptions tinted dangerously close to the violet end of the spectrum either. Nailing character voice, which seems to me like something you'd want in a character-focused moege to make the girls feel alive, is entirely a prose problem, and indeed a translation quality problem.

On the topic of harem titles: Harem, by their very definition, involve multiple people. Due to the traditional standards of romance, polygamy is not often in the cards outside of outright sex stuff (much to my dismay). This would mean that any title that pursues the avenue of multiple romantic interests will have to either choose one, changing genres and killing some of the audience, or never come to a resolution. These are the kind of titles that can only live off the premise, and they will end should it be resolved.* That is why I believe that titles that can somehow find a way to continue after breaking through this limitation (without introducing a new such hook and limitation) are best. That, or titles that are never inconvenienced by such limitations, like the slice-of-life genre. However, despite these obvious limitations, harem titles and their ilk are by far the most popular. Teasing with only minor pay-off (a kiss after three seasons that gets misunderstood and reverts back into the status quo) does wonders at keeping people addicted. It also often happens that harem titles are somewhat sexual in nature, skipping over the romance in the process. This is, of course, to offer some stimulation and pay-off even without needing to commit to any one person, and maintaining the hook and status quo for as long as there's money in the business. There is also something to be said about multiple girls being interested in the same person providing a great scenario for all sorts of drama and 'best girl' moments and competitions. Anime such as Nisekoi made they living by giving everyone a chance to be best girl and Re:Zero has the famous debate over Rem and Emilia. A lot of wonderful scenarios can be concocted by having multiple romantic interests, but it is usually not in the makers' best interests to let the hook end and reach a conclusion. Visual Novel's inherent advantage is that they CAN choose everyone, and they don't even need to make it a polygamous relationship. Multiple paths enable these possibilities that are mostly shut-off to the other mediums. The thing with VNs is, as a PC game in Japan, they usually need porn in order to sell, as it's the one thing they have over mobile and consoles, which are far more popular in Japan. So the reason VNs do well on the romantic front is two-fold: They can establish hooks like anime and manga, but since VNs are necessarily finite in length, they cannot let the hook carry them indefinitely and will need to commit. Thankfully, it is easy to pull that off with VNs, as they can offer multiple paths, dedicating to everyone a full path of sole romance. As a PC game, they tend to press their one advantage: sex. This usually brings along with it a plethora of other romantic shenanigans in order to provide context. *For example, the other day I saw a manga where the entire premise was that the romantic interest is a huge tsundere that is only true to herself... when she becomes a ghost, as she has the power to do so at any point. What she doesn't know is that the protagonist can see her. The whole story is around the protagonist pretending he can't see her whilst she goes super dere-dere all over him in ghost form. A reader will spend the entire time hoping that the two get together, but it is plain to see that there's nothing to the manga outside of this tease and premise. On the topic of manga: Shoujo can include sex as something that happens off-screen, assuming it happens at all. Where sex happens more often is in smut titles, and those would generally be considered josei more than shoujo. The reason why shoujo include sex more often is because when seinen and/or shounen do it, the titles are usually just hentai by that point. That is to say, seinen and shounen tend to be more extreme, leading to borderline-h titles that you're likely not interested in, whereas shoujo scarcely ever goes this far, instead becoming a form of smut and josei you're also not interested in by that point. So the question becomes: "Why is there a clearer separation between all-ages and 18+ for male stuff than there is for female stuff?" I would theorise that that would be because porn is more widely spread as a thing among the teenage male population than among the teenage female one, and that would mean that including light stuff in shounen and the like is not as much of a selling point as it would be to the teenage female audience. So, when you say that shoujo manga has more romance stuff, I reply with Girls are believed to have more interest in romantic matters where as boys are believed to prefer more raunchy stuff. It follows that stories aimed at girls more often include romantic things that boys'. This includes very romantic and non-explicit sex scenes, the exact opposite of what you find in seinen and some shounen stuff. More popular shounen usually have a harem than shoujo stuff, which impedes romance severely (shoujo have love triangles, which are their own kind of hell, but don't sabotage romantic interactions as much as a harem intentionally does). Shoujo plotlines traditionally follow a girl falling for a guy who's nice (or mean) to them once, and tend to involve more one-on-one and romantic interactions, whereas shounen doesn't usually even focus on romance to begin with, unless it's a harem. The reason why this is is because plotlines where a guy falls head-over-heels with a girl and is led around by the nose aren't as popular as the shoujo versions. In the end, then, why is it that the titles are usually at one extreme or the other: Full-on hentai VS endless harem/romance with scarcely a bit of progress in sight. The reasons are all spread out throughout what I've mentioned previously. Romantic titles tend to garner more interest by placing a hook or dramatic situation that, if resolved, would either end the story or cause a sharp decrease in interest. This is the reason why romance anime and some romance manga tend to be long and inconclusive. If progress is made, it'll usually be towards the end. They use these methods because they air/publish continuously, whereas VNs are single titles with a set beginning and end. It is not that there are no titles with proper romantic progression over the course of the story: consider these two lists I made (that are now rather outdated, as I've come across many more). It's just that the popular ones aren't usually these. They're the others. Because of their hooks and more continuous nature. The more romantic titles will always, due to the absence of strong hooks and drama, be less popular, despite offering more romantic progression. The reason why all-ages stuff doesn't tend to include sex or intimate nudity is that it is a very large jump to make. You'd be jumping from something that can be sold everywhere to something that's have more limited sections to be sold in, and that is simply not a worthwhile sacrifice to make unless you're going for full-on porn.

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai || a good librarian like a good shepherd || 大図書館の羊飼い *Summary* _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This walkthrough is based on the Fan Translation of Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai by Library Shepherd and leaked by their editor linktriforce007 on Reddit. It was originally released in Japan by August in 2013 This VN has 5 main heroines and 3 sub heroines. An Anime Series was also adopted and broadcasted in 2014. *Description* ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When he was young, Kyoutarou wanted to read all the magic books in the world, but they were all in the magic library. Someone told him that to get there, he must be kind to everyone and bring happiness to their hearts. He received a bookmark, which was his entrance ticket to the magic library. One day while heading to school, he received a text from the shepherd (hitsujikai) telling him that his fate was going to change. He had a vision of an accident at the tram station and helped prevent any injuries by calling away a nearby girl. That girl, Tsugumi, later came to the Library Club room, which he was a member of, to thank him and also to ask for his help to make Shiomi Academy more fun. It seemed that she had also received a text from the shepherd, who is rumoured to appear before people who try their best to grant their wishes. One by one, other students also join their group with the shepherd's guidance. *Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order* ______________________________________________________________________________________________ This VN has 5 main heroines and 3 sub heroines... The routes of 4 heroines ( Shirasaki Tsumugi, Sakuraba Tamamo, Misono Senri & Suzuki Kana ) can be played in Any Order. Kodachi Nagi (True Route) can only be accessed after you've completed at-least one of the above 4 routes). However I would recommend playing Kodachi Nagi last. (True Route choices have a special bookmark indicator) Each Route has an Appendix scenario which gets unlocked after finishing the respective routes..These scenarios come in the form of an extra H scene..so don't miss out on those.. The Main Menu background can be changed after clearing each route..simply click on the logo to do so..There is a new image for every route cleared. The other 4 heroines also have True endings that are Branched off from Nagi Route. Consider doing them Last after Nagi Route Save / Load points have been added for convenience purposes. However, should you find yourself stuck in any situation, it is recommended to complete said route from beginning to end without using any checkpoints. The savepoints follow the order in which the routes appear below. *Route Guideline * ________________________________________________________________________________________ There are 5 Main Heroines and 3 Sub heroines and can be completed in any order. Kodachi Nagi(True Route) requires you to complete at-least one of the other 4 heroines before you can start her route. The other 4 main heroines and the 3 sub heroines can be played in any order.. True Endings for other 4 heroines are unlocked after finishing Kodachi Nagi Route. It is advisable to follow the ending guidelines stated above. Lets Begin *** Main Heroines *** Shirasaki Tsumugi Sakuraba Tamamo Misono Senri Suzuki Kana *** Sub-Heroines *** Mochizuki Maho Serizawa Miyu Ureshino Sayumi *True Endings* ==================================================================================================== Kodachi Nagi Shirasaki Tsumugi Misono Senri Sakuraba Tamamo Suzuki Kana *Attribution* ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ This Walkthrough was referenced from Seiya Saiga as well as my own playthrough of the VN. Thanks to Shaun and other Fuwanovel members for feedback that was then implemented where possible.

Hi, I like mostly yuri/otome visual novels(I've read Fate/Stay Night though for example). Not really new to the community per say, I've been on the Discord quite a while now(Hi Dergonu!). I have a interest in Japanese culture, and language. I also have a great interest in kei cars that are produced for the Japanese market exclusively, I've owned 2 before, and I'm about to get my 3rd as soon as I get the tires so I can drive it out of port.

Context: a guy I met on Fuwa’s discord was told to end the TL for “his own good” and the translation team did not like him for his one too many jokes. After talking about it with the guy, I realized something. In the anime, manga, Japanese video game worlds, there’s nobody arguing over the purity of a translation, even weirder this doesn’t happen in the Light Novel world either. Light Novels are 100% text, but when translations come, nobody gets into arguments about whose translation is better or whatever. It’s the weirdest thing. Why in the VN community do have such a purity spiral for translation? None of the other mediums of Japanese entertainment have this issue even though they all need to be translated. Even when there’s an official release of a VN, all the fan translaters loose their damn minds. Like... why? I doubt our brothers from the land of the rising sun have such fervor when they translate EVNs. I think this snobby attitude over translation needs to stop because we’re not going to ever make a “perfect” translation because translation itself is a art not a science. Personally, look I thought about this before: I am going to bite the bullet and say: I rather read a bad translation than to never get a translation at all. With a bad translation, people can see how it’s bad and someone could make it better. I understand that people really care about doing their best, but there’s so many kamiges out there that will remain untranslated. The VN fandom is growing, but we’re nowhere near anime levels of mainstream thought, and I think this stupid purity spiral regarding visual novel translations is one of the main reasons why.

Translation Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 100% (2691/2691) Tonoko Route - 81% (7088/8709) Branch School - 27% (1607/5846) Total - 19% (13177/68206) TLC Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 6% (157/2691) Branch School - 3% (187/5846) Total - 3% (2135/68206) Edit Prologue - 100% (1791/1791) Main School - 6% (157/2691) Branch School - 20% (1157/5846) Total - 5% (3076/68206) The team is jhard at work. Tonoko's route should be finished in the next couple of months. 頑張って @ittaku We are still looking for a permanent TLC to work on this project. Please PM me if you're interested in working as a TLC for this project. That's all for this week. See you in another couple of weeks.

This is everything my 16 year old self ever fucking wanted, holy fuck. http://www.siliconera.com/2018/09/11/too-kyo-games-is-led-by-danganronpa-staff-and-zero-escape-series-creator/ Staff includes Kodaka, Masafumi Takada (Danganronpa's composer), Takumi Nakuzawa (who worked on Ever17 and directed Root Double), and Kotaro Uchikoshi (Ever17, Zero Escape). http://www.siliconera.com/2018/09/11/too-kyo-games-first-projects-are-an-anime-and-a-couple-games-including-a-death-game-for-kids/ First project's being written by Uchikoshi and Kodaka (holy fuck) and has a theme of Extreme vs. Despair. Concept art: Second project is an anime written by Kodaka and directed by Pierrot. Concept art: Third project is a “A death game of children, by children, for children." (credit for the phrase goes to Siliconera) Concept art: Fourth project is a "reasoning adventure" in a Too Kyo - Spike Chunsoft crossover. Concept art: Credit for all info, art and wording goes to Siliconera (the two linked articles).