meru

This thread still needs help to grow. Feel free to post your useful resources, with a small description of what it is. You can also ask any questions related to this topic.
 
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Chances are, if you read VN, at some point you'll get interested in learning Japanese. This thread will NOT tell you how to learn japanese, I'm not qualified for that. This is a compilation of useful resources you might need, put together by helpful members and myself.

If you know absolutely nothing about the language, I recommend you to read a bit about it before. Read some wikipedia pages and the introductions of various guides. The best way to approach things is probably to try out a bit of everything and see what works for you.

Here are the categories of resources presented:

*Learning methods: more-or-less complete schedule other people put together.
*Useful softwares, apps & cie
*Kanji & Kana
*Grammar
*Practice material

Learning methods
Those hardly consist of rigid guides that'll take you all the way, but they might help to give you an idea on how to approach learning the language. Don't spend too much time looking for methods, you'll most likely end up doing things in a different way anyway. 
Tae Kim's complete guide to japanese (everything is not complete yet)
Nukemarine's Suggested Guide for Beginners "It's a guide on how to learn japanese by plowing through anki cards in a effective manner. It's made by a community member at Koohi forums. (I'd like to mention you can learn vocab very fast with this method and keep it in memory. But you learn without a lot of context, which has its negative sides.)" (Bolverk)
The Tay way  (note that this is from 2013 and no longer in use)
Aaeru's "learn how to read VN in two years"

Useful softwares
Those are basic tools you'll almost certainly need, or at least try out, in your learning of japanese.

Google IME: Allows you to type in Japanese. Click this link, click the big blue button, install: you can now switch your typing mode to japanese.
Rikaichan: Firefox app that gives you a dictionary entry for a word by simply hovering over it. Extremely useful. Also exists for Chrome.

Anki: A flash card software with a built-in algorithm for learning efficiency. Exists on Android and iOS too. (Regular hand-written flash-cards can be a useful tool too). Use shared decks to find vocab/kanji pre-made decks.

Note about Anki: the use of Anki is advocated as necessary by some and deemed completely useless by others. Starting out with basic vocab/kanji grinding will probably help you ease into practice material, however learning tons of words, or worse even tons of kanji out of context is not a good idea. It's up to you to find out whether you want to use Anki (and whether you can).
ITH, TA, Mecab, Jparser: ITH is a text hooker that'll extract the text from, say, a VN for you. Translation Aggregator will pass said text through parsers and dictionaries. Extremely useful to practice on VNs.
Some tips and other softs for ITH here
Chiitrans: a useful alternative to ITH/TA. Same principle. Read the tuto for more details.
Visual Novel Reader: Another alternative to ITH/TA.

Note about text hookers: it might seem obvious but do NOT use machine translations with your text hookers. You won't learn anything from the garbage it feeds you and you won't even actually understand what's going on, whether you think you do or not.
It is also not a very good idea to rely on parsers for grammar purposes. Parsers are far from perfect. They certainly can't replace a grammar resource and basic googling.
Think of text hookers as crutches you use until you become able to read without constantly looking up vocabulary. It is also a good idea to switch to japanese-japanese dictionaries as soon as you can - only they will give you the nuances of the words, and they're also much less flawed than existing free j-e dictionaries.   

Kanji & Kana
Learning the hiragana and katakana should be about the first thing you do. It's not very long or difficult. Becoming accustomed to reading them is longer but it eventually comes.
Kanjis are probably the biggest psychological barrier for japanese learners. I don't have a magical method to suggest, but do tell yourself it's really not that hard if you stop thinking too hard about it and trying to find the best, most optimized method for learning them. Try to learn the basic ones, see where you can get, and start practicing on reading as soon as you can.

RealKana: This is just an example among others of ways to learn the kana. It's the first thing you should do anyway, and it's not hard or long.
Heisig's Remember the Kanji: A method for learning kanji through memo stories, by association with an english keyword. Good for starters, probably won't get you through the whole kanji learning though. See Tay's guide and this website too.
Kanjidamage: Learning the kanjis through radicals and memo sentences. I'm not a fan of his method, but it has some interesting information in the introduction and on some kanjis.

Grammar
Basic grammar:
Tae Kim's guide: The most popular (and free!) guide on the internet. Rather compact, has all the essential grammar with good explanations and examples. A must.
Genki: To take things more slowly, or have a different view on points you didn't get. (No links for that one yet, it's not free, sorry)
Nihongomori: this is a youtube channel with videos explaining grammar, but also vocab and other misc things, done by native speakers (in english for the basics, japanese later). It goes from basic grammar (JLPT N5-N4 level) up to finer points (N2-N1 level) so it actually covers intermediate/advanced grammar too. The videos are pretty fun and well done, if you like the video media it might work good for you.
More advanced grammar:
Imabi: Lots of in-depth explanations about various grammar subjects. Not recommended for pure beginners and not written as a guide.
If you want to go further than that, you'll need to go into japanese grammar books. Don't forget a simple research on the internet can give you lots of explanations about pretty much anything anyway.
Advanced grammar:
If you want to go further into grammar than that (for example if you want to read 古典 and such), you'll probably need to go into japanese grammar textbooks.
This guide is approved as being really good. (Change the encoding of the page to Japanese EUC-JP for it to display correctly)
This page could be useful too.
Feel free to do your own research!
Others:
A grammar cheat sheet. Not for beginners, obviously.
Nihongoresources: A grammar guide. Never tried it.

Practice Material

General advice: Try to avoid material based on comedy (because you need a good enough knowledge to get the jokes), or that rely heavily on slang or local dialect. Also, avoid things that have too much technical vocabulary (hard sci-fi) or chuuni stuff with abstract concepts and archaic kanjis.

Chokochoko: Some practice texts (articles on various stuff), ranked by JLPT difficulty.
Children's tales: easy place to start.
Japanese subtitles for lots of anime.
VNs in japanese:
 *Relatively easy language for a story-focused VN.
 *List of VN for beginners, with two levels of difficulty.
 *A big list of Visual novels to read if you are confident enough (~JPTL N2).

I won't point you out to raw mangas, of course, but if you can find high enough quality scans (or can afford to import them) it's obviously a great way to practice. Every shoujo and shonen manga have furiganas on every kanjis. Seinen/josei may not have them, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily more difficult.
Dictionaries, vocabulary resources
Note: Japanese-english dictionaries (the free ones you'll find on the internet) are pretty much all based on Edict. Of course, as a beginner you have to use j-e dictionaries, but 1) edict is far from perfect 2) j-e dictionaries are inherently limited anyway: only japanese dictionaries will give you the right nuance (and they're rather excellent). So as soon as you can, switch to japanese dictionaries. The jump is not easy but it's necessary, especially if you intend to read VNs with a higher level of language.
Overall, the internet is your friend! A simple search will often yield whatever you're looking for. Finding your way, especially in japanese websites, is the most useful skill you can develop (although once again you need to reach a certain level of confidence first).  
Jisho: Jap/eng dictionary.
Tangorin: Same thing.
WWWJDIC Dictionary site.
Japanese online dictionary. Requires good enough knowledge of japanese to be used.
Slang dictionary. Same as above.
Writing recognition: Tries to find a kanji directly written with your mouse.
Tanos: Various JLPT-related resources: vocabulary and kanji lists, etc.
Blog posts and articles about learning japanese
Blogpost by garejei: Tips and a view on kanji memorization.

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Thanks to Clephas, Bolverk, cryofrzd, Okami, garejei, Mephisto and probably a bunch of others I forgot to add (sorry!) for their contributions.

You will love it, I'm sure!! Let me know what you think, what your favourite route is, etc

As a new member of Fuwanovel, I can truly say that this has been an awesome place to be. It feels like that even if I am new, my opinions and inputs really do matter and the community is actively giving their inputs as well. I would have never imagined that I would be this active on any forum but the people keep me coming back. Thanks for being so great guys.

Hi, welcome to Fuwa~!

So.... I believe me and Ilegend will rewrite the FuwanViewer in WPF. We haven't really starting coding yet, but we've already decided about the new features we want to add:

sync with VNDB user
Blacklist for VNs you don't want to see
New layout
some caching mechanism, (was it there before?)
support for themes and theme creation tool


Thats all we came up with, but perhaps you guys may have some ideas. If you want us to implement some feature, it is the best time to tell us Here is a link to a little sketch of the application, play around with it and give us some feedback guys

I think the posters above have answered your question, so I'll just say welcome to the forums

I have no idea what's going on here but.. hi & welcome to the forums!

Grisaia no Kajitsu
Licensed by Sekai Project
 
Summary

Mihama Academy - on the surface, a closed learning environment established to nurture students who find themselves at odds with the world around them; in actuality, an orchard-cum-prison built to preserve fruit that has fallen too far from its tree.

Whatever the circumstances behind its establishment, Mihama Academy is at present home to five female students, all with their own reasons for "enrollment." For better or worse, each girl has established a routine obliging of her current situation; life moves at an idle, yet accommodating pace within the walls of Mihama.

Yet with the arrival of the institute's first male student, the nearly preposterously opaque Kazami Yuuji, the students at Mihama begin to fall out of step with their predetermined rhythms. Will Yuuji prove to be the element the girls around him needed to take hold of their lives once more, or will the weight of their pasts prove too steep a wall to overcome?

And in the first place, just who is Kazami Yuuji? While the true nature of the "job" he is wont to alight to at the most haphazard of moments remains shrouded in secrecy, one thing is for certain - his encroachment upon the quiet orchard known as Mihama Academy will prove itself momentous in one way or another. And of course, one cannot discount the possibility that perhaps Yuuji himself carries the weightiest past of any of the students...


Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order
The game has a similar structure to G-Senjou no Maou in that its plot branches into a heroine's route at certain choices, although each of them is valid in its own as there's no true end. After entering a heroine's route the choices boil down to a single one for good/bad end.

Following the flow of the story and entering each route as soon as you encounter them would lead to the following order: Makina -> Amane -> Sachi -> Michiru -> Yumiko.

That said,


Route Guideline
 

Amane



Good End

Bad End


Makina



Good End

Bad End


Michiru



Good End

Bad End


Sachi


Good End

Bad End


Yumiko



Good End

Bad End
Attribution
A mysterious source. Aaeru formatted the original version of this post. It has since been updated and reworked several times by various staff members and admins.

Clannad
Licensed by Sekai Project
Clannad is a Japanese Visual Novel created by the company Key which is known for its other titles such as Air and Kanon.
Clannad, unlike its predecessors, does not contain any adult content but instead, focuses on the relationships between the characters.
Story

Clannad's story revolves around Tomoya Okazaki, a third year high school student who dislikes his life. Tomoya's mother (Atsuko) died when Tomoya was young, leaving his father (Naoyuki) to raise him. After the accident, Tomoya's father turned to alcohol and gambling, and held frequent fights with his son.

One day, Naoyuki, again arguing with his son, slammed Tomoya against the wall, dislocating Tomoya's shoulder. Ever since then, his father has treated Tomoya nicely, but distantly, as if Tomoya and he were strangers rather than a family. This hurts Tomoya more than his previous relationship with his father, and the awkwardness of returning home leads Tomoya constantly to stay out all night. Additionally, the injury disables Tomoya from participating in his basketball club, and pushes him to distance himself from his school and other activities. Thus his delinquent life begins. Tomoya's good friend Youhei Sunohara, who got thrown out of the soccer club for a dispute, is also a delinquent and often hangs out in his dorm room with Tomoya doing nothing much.


Suggested Walkthrough Order!!


Ending Guide
The '*' marked choices are the essential ones. For any other choice you can choose what you want for different dialogues.
The number inside the square brackets "[]" tells you the number of the choice (So [2] would be choice 2).

***School Life Routes***

Sagara Misae:
 

Sakagami Tomoyo:



Miyazawa Yukine
 

Fujibayashi Ryou
 

Fujibayashi Kyou
 

Hiiragi Kappei



Sunohara Siblings
 

Ichinose Kotomi
 

Ibuki Fuko
 

Toshio Koumura
 

Furukawa Nagisa


After Story


************************************************************

A Guide to the Minigames within Clannad
Yukine's storage room curse
In Yukine's route there are 'spell games' that you can play on the 23rd and 24th of April. There are many different variations to the storage curse. Here is the list of Characters you can have fun with!!
Furukawa Nagisa

Furukawa Akio!

Sakagami Tomoyo

Fubayashi Kyou

Sagare Misae

Ibuki Fuko


Doki Doki High School
Sometimes you are prompt to read manga or play a ‘Doki Doki High School’ mini game. Check here for guide!!

Possibilities for Sunohara's Girlfriend
In Mei Sunohara's route you'll have to find Sunohara a girlfriend. You'll end up with Sanae in the end no matter what but here are some other fun options.

Prank list for Fuko
Throughout the Ibuki Fuko route you can play pranks on Fuko but here are some things you'll have to pay attention to.

3v3 Basketball Partners
During Nagisa and Toshio's route, there is a 3v3 Basketball Minigame where you can select your teammates.
You can have different partners other than Tomoyo and Kyou. Here's a detailed walkthrough for how to get each character:

Attention: Fubayashi Ryou, Ibuki Yukine and Furukawa Nagisa as partner will result in a loss, giving you the Bad End.
 
Sagare Misae

Yoshio Yusuke

Furukawa Akio!

Fubayashi Ryou

Fubuki Fuko

Miyazawa Yukine

Furukawa Nagisa

Baseball Fun
This is a fun route with Akio and other characters! It is possible to see the laser tag game with other options, but if you don't meet the criteria for the baseball scene, you will get a bad end immediately after the tag game. There are multiple outcomes to the baseball game, but these choices result in winning.

Jet Saito
There is a way you can cause Jet Saito to appear in two different places. The first few choices are the same, and split off once you decide where you want to see him. It's a one line cameo, but this is about the most random thing you'll ever see.

Scenes to Replay
Some scenes have various versions to it that you can play it again and find new items! Things include


This walkthrough is taken from the Animesuki Forum and the 300 hour Clannad Guide, with minor changes/improvements added by me.

Air
Summary
Kunisaki Yukito's deceased mother left him with the doll and her last wish that Yukito look for the "girl in the skies" because it is his destiny to save her. Only half-understanding what his mother meant, Yukito has been traveling across Japan, vainly searching for this myth-like girl his mother told him about. His latest destination is a small, sleepy town where summer has just arrived; and his encounter with a young girl named Misuzu there sets the wheels of destiny turning...
 
Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order
Route Guideline

Kamio Misuzu
 

Kirishima Kano
 

Toono Minagi
 

Summer
 

Air

 
Attribution

This walkthrough is based on info attained on g-seeker.net with some adjustments made by me.

1) Yes, a definite yes.  I love sister routes, especially twin sister routes.  I have a thing for the forbidden and obsessively passionate relationships when it comes to romance, and sister routes tend to provide that more often than the regular 'I just met you but I love you' sort of VN romance.
 
2) I don't believe in censorship in literature or complete fiction, though I personally despise rape and am not fond of hard BDSM (anything beyond a blindfold or maybe tying the hands makes me wither, lol).  My only stipulation is that one should also understand where pro-censorship people are coming from.  In their eyes, fiction is not just fiction, it something a writer could see themselves doing in many cases.  Also, you shouldn't underestimate the amount of influence the written word can have on the reader.  A half a decade ago, I would have considered it disgusting to speak about my personal fetishes with others, and now I have no problem making jokes about it.  That is almost entirely due to my obsessive playing of VNs.  It is this influence that pro-censorship people fear, and it is a legitimate fear... though fear is not a good enough reason to ignore the principles of free speech.  Vulgarity and the like are matters of subjective perspective, and as such they are not legitimate reasons to suppress the freedom of expression. 

post some good tinkerbell lolis here 



It's okay if it's another artist as long as they are well drawn in a similar art style

Hi Kiki, welcome to the forums! Great to have another girl around
Sounds like a big project.. looking forward to seeing how it develops!

Hi there, welcome to the forums! I should come on the irc channel more often >.<

Ageless
Gender-less
Omnipresent

That was going to be my guess!! Especially since you are so sure you're right... ;P

Welcome to the forums! And congratulations on graduating from 'newbie' to 'member'

Because I promised to eventually post my full collection, heres most of what I've collected over the last few years of working and scrouging to pay off school and then splurging the rest after all my expenses were paid. Also included my two wall scrolls that I picked up at the con because it was about time I got new ones - had a pair of Haruhi ones for over 4 years now haha. Also excuse the crappy picture quality; cell phone is all I got.

Personally, I play a lot of visual novels specifically for the H-scenes. I like quite cutesy stuff, so I'm glad that there are cute, sugary vn with sex scenes in, rather than just having the hardcore stuff to choose from. I also like to get to 'know' a character before the sex - what can I say, I guess I'm just an ol' romantic - so I also like having the sex scenes anchored in some kind of story.
On the other hand, I also love a good plot, and I have had times when I've really been jolted out of it by a random H-scene that seems thrown in just for the sake of it. For example, I'm currently playing Kara no Shoujo, and am totally invested in the mysteries and how the story might turn out. The H-scenes so far have added nothing to the story, and I've just clicked through them to get back to the main point.
So, I guess I do have an issue with H-scenes that are just there for the sake of it. It would be nice if works with a genuine story to tell didn't feel they had to have sex in them to sell. I actually think it's a great idea when studios such as Key do all-ages and adult versions of their games.

Man I wish I could draw
I wanna see other people's art though, so please post your stuff here!

YANDERE
I love you, so I want to kill you
Rated 18+
NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
This is a kill or be killed brutal and deadly love story. Can you stay alive all the way to the ending? The girls are all violently possessive and go head over heels after sex. Every single one of them is sick!!

The girls that you, the protagonist, can be with are: Miyauchi Saki, Kikushita Yuumi, and Saitou Maika.
 
Ending Guide
Yandere is a gruesome, bloody, and fun game to play.
 
Route Walkthrough
Miyauchi Saki

Saki's End

Saki's Worst End
Kikushita Yuumi

Yuumi's End

Yuumi's Worst End
Saitou Maika

Maika's End

Maika's Worst End
 
OTHERS
Bad End 01

Bad End 02

Subaru's End
BONUS

Source:
This walkthrough was prepared and submitted by Skeith
With help from Xehanort and Eurobeatz
Edited the guide posted by computerlove from VNdb.org.

Cool, thanks~
Have you ever used Archive of Our Own? I highly recommend it as an alternative to FF.net.

You are a great person. +50 ;D

It's my new guilty pleasure. Bless KyoAni for animating Free!

Hey guys, I thought id post some pics!!

here's a picture of my Grandson and I.



And one of my awesome Robot leg compliments of an IED (Improvised explosive device) in Iraq.



The leg goes with the 7 mortar fragments that are still in my chest&legs, and the 3 bullets that I took to chest/shoulder. Needless to say, everyday I'm able to get up and be with my wife, read VN's, and just be alive is a good day. I'm really glad I found this community, and the joy of Visual Novels. So thanks guys!!

I'm sold. AotY