Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we'll going to have both of Amazing Grace and Aoi Tori released in few days, I decided to make the parody of Detective Conan 12th movie again, Full Score of Fear, because the movie has Amazing Grace song with I change 'Full Score' into 'Curtain Call' from Aoi Tori insert song (Futaridake no Curtain Call), so we have 'Curtain Call of Fear' as the title. For this week, all in all it's above average one. The reason is definitely not because the number of the new announcements or Kara no Shoujo 2 release by Shiravune (Which is redundant to me), but because we finally have the exact release date for both of the aforementioned Amazing Grace and Aoi Tori. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week.
Cherry Kiss released Hentai Homewrecker, and feel free to try the VN if you're into NTR. For this week announcements, first of all we have Kagura Games work together with Alicesoft to localize the remake of Yoru ga Kuru, which Alicesoft presumably release based on Persona 3 Reload release (I mention it because of the similar plot). Idea Factory announced Switch only otome game 9 R.I.P., and it's about the ordinary high school girl who was suddenly thrown into supernatural happening with she need to chose her boyfriend from several handsome ghosts who become her acquaintance. Dramatic Create announce they'll localize Tokyo Meiji Renka, and unlike Idea Factory they announce the PC version as well. From what I see, it's about the female MC who time traveled into Meiji era and then awaken her superpower. By the way, all of those three VNs are slated to be released within this year (2024). We also have Kemco announced their denpa VN Horrific Xanatorium will be available on 26th later, and it's about the MC who live in a world where the virus that cause hallucination became the pandemic which naturally made the MC doubt about the reality.
Shiravune released Kara no Shoujo 2, and once again I can only say it's the redundant release even though it's interesting to see they manage to sell it on Steam, especially with they reject it back when Mangagamer published it. That said, it has trial bundled into the main game with the trial is more like the prologue along with the new translation courtesy GundamAce of Lemnisca. JAST has a bit of progress, namely they've been fully translated Djibril with it currently is in editing work, finished the 1st QA pass for Hell Academy, and struggling with bugs in Tokyo Hero Project. For fan translation, we have Akagoei 3 is at 58.06% edited, Taima Seiko Alice is at 20% proofreading, Ushieta is at 54.5% translated with Nagisa's route is at 46.5% translated, and ChuSingura is at 42.68% translated.
Unfortunately Valve reviewer decided to reject Aoi Tori build that Nekonyan submit, so they have no choice except delay the release for Steam version of Aoi Tori. That said, at least this time the reviewer just rejected the build instead of banned the game like Tenshi Reboot, so we may see Aoi Tori Steam version sometimes in the future. Also just because the build rejected didn't mean Nekonyan delay the release of Aoi Tori, especially since they already in tight deadline imposed by Purple Software, so yeah they already have the exact release date for Aoi Tori. Said date will be on the next week (30th), and you can buy it from either JAST or Denpasoft later. Speaking of announce the exact release date, Shiravune decided to follow suit with they surprisingly announce the same for Amazing Grace, with the release time will be in Friday (26th) later, so feel free to note the date if you've been waiting for it, especially if you've been waiting since they announced it in last 2023.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (14/04/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we have Corpse Party 2 along with Cherry Kiss nukige (Hentai Homewrecker) announced I decided to combine both so we have 'Homewrecker Party' for the title. As for this week, initially it's just another below average one, although turned out this week we have some very notable updates in regard of the release plan so overall this week is an average one to a degree. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week.
Once again Cherry Kiss announced their new nukige, Hentai Homewrecker, with the MC was roped into have NTR by the willing housewife. No much comment that I can mention other than it'll be released in two days (19th) later. We also have Team Gris Gris was turned out still active with them silently develop the real Corpse Party 2 (Not the fanfic game one), and the VN will be available sometimes in Autumn 2024 (Between October to December) later. Oh yes, it's also will be availble on PC, so you don't need to buy the console just to play this later. For the premise, it's like the first Corpse Party with the casts dragged into the otherworld with them must do their best to escape from the vengeful ghost, except this time all of the main casts are all female (We may have male side casts reveal later though) and the casts dragged into the otherworld from the abandoned hospital instead of the abandoned school.
This week we have both Sekai and Shiravune announced the nukige with summer theme. Sekai revealed that they've been working on Kurikuri Click with the MC was does his best at his job as oil masseuse with his task job is to rub the oil into the customer's body, which eventually lead to the sex scenes when the MC at one instance was going overboard when he got sexy woman customers. Anyway, it'll be available on May 3rd later. Shiravune also revealed they've been working on Nyonin Island with the MC was hired as the island manager, and then it's revealed the MC got nice job because turned out the island has no male before the MC came to the island, so normally the female turned to the MC to have sex. For the release time, Shiravune only list that it'll be on this year. Speaking of release time, Shiravune announce the exact release date for both Mashiro Iro with said date is May 2nd, so keep the date in mind if you've been waiting for Mashiro Iro in English for some times.
From fan translation, we have Taima Seiko Alice is at 35% edited along with 10% proofreading, ChuSingura is at 42.22% translated, Akagoei 3 is at 56.28% edited, and Ushieta is past halfway (50.8%) translated with Nagisa's route is at 28.4% translated. Other than regular updates, we also have Sampaguita release, and from what I understand its the third game of Yarudora series with the MC encounter the amnesiac girl Maria who is from Philippine and carrying a gun, which tipped the MC that Maria is involving in something dangerous. Note that the patch is for PSP version, so you need PSP emulator to play it. We also have Loverable translator announce they'll release it in August later after working on it for eight years, although for now it's still up in the air. Last but not the least, we have Daybreak announce the exact release date for Yuzuki's patch release, and it'll be in 26th later so let's see if Daybreak can finally release the last patch for Ginharu at that date.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Welcome to my list of best-rated translated visual novels in 2023, with the world back to normal after the pandemic. Of course, we still have several translated VN releases, even though the title is not as big as in several past years. But if anything else, seeing Mahoyo being available on Steam means Type-Moon showed an interest in releasing their translated VN on PC, which is quite interesting. Also, I'm sorry if some of your favorite VNs are not on the list because I may be a bit subjective in making this list. As for the rule, the translation must be considered complete by VNDB as of today, April 8th, 2024, and the score for each VN is the score on VNDB today. Oh yes, I almost forgot to say the scores could change in the future.
For the honorable mention, we have Tamayura Mirai (VNDB 7.46), H2O -Footprints in the Sand- (VNDB 7.34), and Ginka (VNDB 7.28). That's all for the honorable mention of 2023.
10. Kunado Kokuki (VNDB 7.46)
I already guess Purple Software has a plan to add translated Kunado in Steam by reducing the number of sex scenes to almost less than half on either Amatsutsumi or Aoi Tori. This time, Purple Software asked Shiravune to localize the game, which makes Purple Software work with four publishers. Even with fewer sex scenes, Shiravune still cut one route for the Steam version before the release. The setting for Kunado is around 1,000 years in the future, with Tekki (the metal that becomes sentient) roaming across the Earth and attacking humanity. Tekki also caused further problems by corrupting all kinds of metal, so humanity had no choice but to revert the civilization to ancient Japan and reduce their numbers. Even so, the humans didn't give up, so they fought against the strongest Tekki and won after one big war with the loss of the strongest warrior. A hundred days after the big war, the amnesiac man (the MC) who knows the civilization from 1,000 years ago woke up from cryogenic sleep. Seeing that humans didn't have any other skill besides fighting, the amnesiac MC decided to teach the humans the knowledge to rebuild the civilization.
9. Walkure Romanze ~Shoujo Kishi Monogatari~ (VNDB 7.60)
In 2011, Ricotta released Walkure Romanze after being successful with Princess Lover. Like Princess Lover, Walkure Romanze has a high-class setting, although they also add jousting sport. While Ricotta themselves is not as famous as Minato-soft, at least they still manage to get some anime VA to voice the characters in Walkure Romanze, such as Shitaya Noriko and Uchiyama Yumi. Ricotta also did their best on the graphic, which made Walkure get the Best Graphic award from Getchu in 2011. In 2012, a fan was interested in translating Walkure Romanze, although the project was going nowhere, so there's no hope of seeing the translation of Walkure Romanze if not for a 4chan user who decided to work on it back in 2021. After two years of effort, we finally see the full translation patch for Walkure Romanze available in August 2023. For the VN, it's about Takahiro, a prodigy in jousting, although he has an accident that forced him to retire. Even so, he still works on jousting as the begleiter (assistant). Being former athletes, many aspiring jousting athletes want his assistance. So obviously, we're going to see Takahiro help the athletes and see his romance blooming while at it.
8. Anonymous Code (VNDB 7.73)
I admit that initially, I thought MAGES did milk Steins Gate again when they made this, especially with the staff saying it has the same setting as Steins Gate. After I see more of the game, I think at least it's not just blatantly milking Steins Gate. Anonymous Code is the sixth Science Adventure VN, and it had six times rewrites. The premise is the hacker MC, Pollon, says he wants to elope with a cute girl, only to have his friend dismiss him. One day, he saw his imaginary girl, Momo, in danger. Being the nice guy and engaged with Momo in his mind, Pollon tries to save Momo even though it's dangerous. Then, Pollon finds the strange app that allows him to Save and Load. Yes, Save and Load like in the video games. So, Pollon use the app to find a safer way to rescue Momo. After escaping the danger, Pollon finds many dangerous people who want to capture Momo, so Pollon decides to do his best to fight the chaser using the mysterious app. Anonymous Code didn't have character routes, which may be good if someone has a problem with the character routes. It also has the English dub, unlike past Science Adventure VNs, so it has the usual translated video game feel.
7. Clover Day's (VNDB 7.77)
In 2014, Astro wanted to express his love for Clover Day's VN, so he established a translation project for it. Time passed, and it was going well until he had to stop his translation activities in 2018. In 2020, Nekonyan announced this as one of their licenses, with the new translator, Ittaku, working on it. Unfortunately, it was not smooth sailing, seeing Valve decide to ban Clover Day's VN. In 2023, Hikari Field submitted the heavily edited VN to Valve, and they finally accepted it. Afterward, Nekonyan released Clover Day's VN in August 2023. The setting in Clover Day's VN is nothing special, especially if we compare it to the other Alcot VNs, such as My Girlfriend is the President or Tokyo Hero Project. The premise is about Yuuto, a half-Japanese who spent his time in an orphanage in England. One day, a businessman from Japan picked Yuuto as his stepson. At first, Yuuto had difficulties getting along with the other children, but then he managed to do so. Ten years after Yuuto came to Japan, Yuuto started to experience romance with one of his childhood friends. I forgot to mention the staff showed their interest in twin heroines, with four heroines being two pairs of twin siblings.
6. Nukige Mitai na Shima ni Sunderu Watashi wa Dou Surya Ii Desu ka? (VNDB 7.93)
Back in 2020, Nukitashi was almost ready to be released in English, only for the chance to blow up thanks to the publisher issue. Thankfully, Shiravune did pick this title, and now we managed to have Nukitashi in English. It's also worth noting that Shiravune cut most of the content for the Steam version, resulting in the Steam version having less than an hour of gameplay, which is quite extreme but understandable if we see how Valve banning works. In Nukitashi, we have the MC Junnosuke return to his hometown in Seiran. When he came back, he saw his hometown turned from a backwater town into a sex paradise thanks to the law that allow people to have sex whenever they want. While this sounds good on paper, he feels that there's something wrong with the state of his hometown, especially when it becomes a police state with civil servants forcing people to have sex. To fight back against the situation, Junnosuke revolts against the system while backed by a mysterious sponsor. As it turned out, Nukitashi's focus is not really on sex like the title suggests (nukige meant sex-focused VN), but instead on the deconstruction of the setting that allows the people to have sex as much as possible.
5. Tokyo Necro (VNDB 8.01)
After Muramasa and Totono, in 2016, Nitroplus released Tokyo Necro with them experimenting with it, notably showing the fight in 3D animation. In Tokyo Necro, the world in 2199 facing the second Ice Age and still reeling from the most terrible war. As if the situation is not bad enough, there are living dead (also known as zombies) roaming in the open, and some people capable of making the zombies do their bidding called Necromancers. Thus, we had two protagonists, Souun and Ethica, working hard fighting the zombies. Even though both are capable of combating the living dead and have an interest in women, both have many differences, such as fighting style, personalities, and gender (Souun is male while Ethica is female). One day, Souun and Ethica do a mission to rescue the VIP person kidnapped by one of the Necromancers. After fighting against the Necromancer, Souun finds the mysterious girl who forgot everything except her name, Ilia. Afterward, both Souun and Ethica started to search for information about Ilia while investigating more about the Necromancer they fought. Eventually, their investigation uncovered multiple secrets connected to Ilia and the world around them.
4. Tsui no Stella (VNDB 8.23)
Tsui no Stella is one of KEY VN. For information, while their more famous work is quite lengthy, they also like to make several short VNs, with those VNs usually having robot characters (a trend they started way back in 2004 with Planetarian). This work is not different from those short VN, with the single heroine, Philia, being an android. The premise for Tsui no Stella is Jude, the MC, is the Courier who worked a dangerous job as the delivery man to deliver the cargo. As for why the job is a dangerous one, it's because Jude lives in a world where humanity is almost extinct with the machines roaming around. One day, Jude received a request to deliver some unusual cargo, and that cargo was Philia, an android who is not hostile to humans. After Jude met with Philia, Philia decided to ask Jude to escort her to the place where she could turn into a human. Seeing no choice, Jude decided to deliver her to her goal. In the journey, Jude and Philia develop their relationship, although in this case, it would be like father and daughter rather than in a romantic sense. The writer for this VN is Tanaka Romeo, who also wrote one of the long KEY VNs, Rewrite.
3. Meikei no Lupercalia (VNDB 8.24)
In the past, I saw a post about voice acting in Lupercalia, so I read the post. Of course, I did hear the sample of the voice acting, and the VA went all out to voicing the character (said character is supposed to be the best actress in the setting, Orihara Hyouko). With good voice acting, I did think it could be good to have it translated, although I knew the chance back then was almost none unless a publisher somehow decided to pick the license. However, one fan decided to take the job of translating the VN alone. After months of hard work, he released the English version with the English title Lupercalia of the Silent Accord. In Lupercalia, we have Tamaki, formerly a child theater actor who quit acting, invited to see Lampyris Troupe performing Hamlet. Curious, he watched it and found out the performance was good. Afterward, Tamaki tried to enter the troupe with his childhood friend, Futaba, only to find out they must pass a test. Seeing Tamaki still has cold feet from acting, he took the director's role to direct Futaba's first play. For the VN itself, there'll be some harsh stories about the theatre and how it'll affect the people in it, with some having tragic ends.
2. Rance IX - Helman Kakumei (VNDB 8.29)
Unlike when there was an 11-year gap between Sengoku Rance and Rance Quest English version releases, we only have a two-year gap between Rance Quest and Rance IX releases, so good job for Mangagamer. For Rance IX's premise, our selfish Rance goes to Helman to seek the secret item in Helman's Royal Treasure. However, seeing Helman is in turmoil, there's no way for Rance to get it. Enter Patton, the former prince of Helman, asking for help from Rance to start the revolutionary army. Rance agrees with some conditions that he must be the one who leads the revolution and has the freedom to have sex with as many girls as possible. Patton agrees with Rance's conditions, and from there, both start to change Helman with revolution. In Rance IX, Alicesoft decided to rehash the gameplay from one of their older VN, Mamatoto (translated by the same translator, Arunaru), with both VNs having several similar soundtracks. Rance IX is the penultimate game of the Rance series, with Alicesoft writing up how Rance will take care of the problems in the oldest human country before going all out to wage war against the Monster Army in Rance X.
1. Tsukihime -A Piece of Blue Glass Moon- (VNDB 8.76)
In 1999, Nasu made a VN with the vampire heroine (Arcueid) called Tsukihime. Seeing that he was still new, he didn't have a big publisher to back him up, so he could only sell it at Comiket in 2000. In 2008, Nasu announced his plan to remake Tsukihime and started its development in 2012. Soon after, Nasu was busy with Fate/Grand Order, so much so that the development halted in 2013. The work resumed in 2017, which still needs some years to finish because Nasu decided to insert new ideas into the remake as much as possible. Finally, after all of years in development, in 2021, we see the release, but only for the first part because the second part is still in development. The premise for Tsukihime is the same no matter which version, with Shiki (who can see the death) murdering Arcueid by impulse. Afterward, Shiki sees Arcueid revived because she's a vampire, and then Arcueid asks Shiki to help her fight because she's weakened after being revived. We had the fan translation patch released first before Aniplex announced this at AX, which made the Aniplex version redundant, especially since they don't say it'll have the PC version (it is only available on Switch).
That's all for my list of translated visual novels released in 2023. Overall, what I can say last 2023 is more or less the same as 2022, only with no exciting Fan Disc release. I can say that Shiravune is getting more aggressive with the releases, even though most of their 2023 catalog is not exciting to me, so I hope they'll get more good work in 2024, together with Nekonyan. Mangagamer does release some good titles, with JAST still at their usual pace, and let's say that I hope Sekai will get the better title in 2024. So yeah, I'll wait and see regarding those three publishers, and hopefully, they can bring some surprises.
PS - Since I made the parody of Fate when Tsukihime Remake translation was released last June as Fate/Twilight Night, I'd reuse the title by changing "Night" with "Revolution" from Rance IX English title, The Helmanian Revolution, so we have "Fate/Twilight Revolution" as the title.
Visual Novel Translation Status (28/01/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. As for the title because we have Shiravune announce Real Eroge Situation 2 along with Cherry Kiss announce their newest nukige, Otoko Orgy at Maid Boy Manor, I figure that I'll just make the parody for the former, so we have 'Real Orgy Situation' as the title. If you ask me what I'd think about this week, then my answer would be that it's another below average one, but at least we have one release compared to the last week, albeit a smaller one. Let's see what I can write about this week.
In case you're looking forward to Knight Case Files release, unfortunately the release time is no longer on January, which obviously mean that it's been delayed. If anything else, at least you can try the trial if you want to see the game beforehand. Once again Cherry Kiss announced their newest nukige with them will release it on February 2nd later, and said nukige name is once again called Otoko Orgy at Maid Boy Manor. I'm quite speechless when I saw the VN first, which is definitely not because Daybreak's translator was worked on this, but instead it's because it has male MC along with trap heroine, as in the male who looking good in female outfit. So yes, Cherry Kiss is basically announce their first BL VN, and if I may say something at least the love interests breast are not as big as the heroines in the previous developer's works. Feel free to note the VN if you have interest to it, although obviously I'll just pass on the VN.
Sekai finally has the exact release date for Nie no Hakoniwa, and it'll be on February 16th later which is the same date as Irotoridori release. Shiravune did release Kagura Genesis on time, and from what I see it's the roguelike RPG with the MC is the miko who can suffer rape from the monster, so yeah usual Debonosu stuff. Lastly, Shiravune also announce their newest license, Real Eroge Situation 2 with them localized the Steam version of it as Real Anime Situation 2. No idea why they decided to skip the first game, although at least I know it's usual nukige with I did watch a clip of the OVA on Youtube. Anyway, the VN is about the MC who experience some things that usually happen in anime, such as find out his popular female classmate masturbate while reading his fetish diary, confessed by female close friend immediately, and confessed by his female childhood friend. So yeah, the MC will feel the real anime situation with three beautiful girls doing their best helping the MC fulfill his fetish. At least the art is nice with it remind me of Noraneko VN, and that it'll be available sometimes on this year.
From fan translation, we have Taima Seikou Alice is at 15% translated, Nagi no Koi is almost fully translated at 95% translated along with 80% edited and its assets has been 63% worked on, ChuSingura is at 38.04% translated, and Akagoei 3 was reached 90% mark (90.21%) translated along with 22.78% edited. There's also a big update in regard of Axanael, with the translator turned out still try their best to work on it with them already translate the main story leaving some side stories untranslated, although currently they're in need of the editor so obviously it's still unedited.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (07/04/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For the title, because we have Tengoku Struggle with the female MC being the step daughter of King Enma tasked to return the prisoners from Hell, I decided to make the parody of the old anime Yu Yu Hakusho with it has the son of King Enma as one of the major character by changing 'Ghost' in its direct translated title (Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files) into 'Prisoners', so we have 'Yu Yu Hakusho: Prisoner Files' as the title. As for this week, we have several releases which to be frank not really interesting to me. Another thing to note is that finally Ninetail announce their timeline for Ragnarok Kickstarter, and ironically it's the most interesting news in this week. Overall, this week is another below average week and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Aksys did release Tengoku Struggle, and for the premise we have female MC Rin who is the step daughter of King Enma tasked to return all of the escaped prisoners that suppose to face their punishment. In order to have good chance to successfully capture the prisoners, Rin enlist the help from Goemon and several others handsome prisoners to do her job, and obviously we'll going to see the romance blossom between Rin and one of her helper. Go get Tengoku Struggle if you have Switch and want to play it, and have fun. Dramatic Create announce they'll localize Nie no Machi along with it's fandisc, and from what I see Nie no Machi is BL VN with the MC is stranded in the world of between the living and the death. For the release time, the main game will be released in this year and the fandisc will be released in 2025. Also there'll be PC version as well, so you didn't need to buy Switch if you want to play this.
Shiravune released Holy Slave Academy, and well no much to say other than it's old nukige with the MC was the teacher who tasked to mold his student into the sex slave by using any means. Speaking of nukige, Cherry Kiss also suddenly released their nukige back in April 1st, and it's about the MC who has his own bunny suddenly transform into the girl which of course will have a lot of sex with the MC. Ninetail announce the time for their Ragnarok Kickstarter, and they say the KS will start some times in May later. Ninetail also mention some difficulties in regard of their upcoming KS, such as no gameplay demo thanks to the engine issue, the increased shipping price because of the rising cost, and the increased price for one of the pledge.
For fan translation, we have Taima Seiko Alice is at 30% edited, Akagoei 3 is at 53.37% edited, ChuSingura is at 41.91% translated, and Ushieta is at 44.9% translated with Airi's route is fully translated. For Ushieta here, obviously this is quite big achievement seeing the old project was stopped at 35% translated, so good job to the translator for finishing Airi's route. Anyway, now that Airi's route is fully translated, the translator planned to working on Nagisa's route next.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
PS - I know there's some significant update in regard of Ginharu, and I decided to save the talk for next VNTS Review.
Visual Novel Translation Status (31/03/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and for the title because we finally have Sekai released ReLord 3 with the sub title '~The demon lord of Groessen and the final witch~', I made the parody with I change 'Groessen' into 'Toyotoki' (From Ihanashi no Majo English title, Tales from Toyotoki) and 'the final witch' into 'the songstress' with songstress part come from one of Venus Blood Hollow fandisc title 'The Dragon Songstress'. Anyway, for this week initially I thought it would be a plain one, but near the end of the month there are several sudden release along with Mangagamer finally do another updates. Overall, this week to me is more or less a below average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
We have a new publisher called Ramune Games about to release their debut work, LingerieS, with the premise the trap MC was assigned to take care of the lingerie shop that his twin sister take care of while said sister have some other business for the whole two months. From what I see, apparently it's another single heroine VN, and looking from the number of the side heroine we may have more parts available later. In any case, the plan is to release the VN in this year later. Ramune Games itself is the branch company of the developer who usually made nukige, so we may have 18+ patch for this. Speaking of this year release, we finally have Ihanashi no Majo English language support for Steam with the support will be available on Autumn later (The Switch version will be available on this Summer).
It's interesting if not funny on how both Ninetail and Sekai decided to do sudden release for both of their VN, and it's good for the latter now that they have one less title to worry about. No much comment on Venus Blood Hollow fandisc other than it'll focused on the dragon sibling (Julia and Liese) who will received a lot of love from Leon's trusted tentacles, and feel free to play if you want more of Hollow (I'm still waiting for Ragnaro's KS). Sekai did suddenly released ReLord 3rd, and with it they finally done with ReLord trilogy. For the premise of ReLord 3, we have the demon lord MC finally almost done to liberate his territory from the witches, although obviously the MC still need to face the hard fight seeing now he need to deal with two enemies at once. Go get ReLord 3 if you've been waiting for the release before playing the trilogy, and have fun. We also have Shiravune announced the exact release date for (Redundant) Taimanin Yukikaze, with said date is 30th later.
Once again, this week we have Mangagamer's updates. As for the updates, we have Hana Awase PC port is in progress, Funbag Fantasy 4 is at 80% translated along with 78% edited, Rance 03 is at 73% translated, Rance X is finally reached 90% mark translated, Sex Open World is also passed 90% mark translated (92%) along with 86% edited, and Ixseal is at 84% translated along with 81% edited. Honestly I only care for Ixseal here, but it's good to see that Rance X finally almost finished its translation work with X has a very big amount of text. Lastly for fan translation, we have Akagoei 3 is past halfway (50.05%) edited, Ryouken After is past halfway (55.58%) translated, Taima Seiko Alice is at a quarter edited, and ChuSingura is at 41.53% translated with Chapter 2 is past three quarter (76.43%) translated.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
In 2022, the pandemic was starting to subside, so after two years of absence, we finally had conventions with several new VNs translation announcements. Of course, we still have translated VN releases, so I'll list the best-rated translated VNs in 2022. Once again, I may be subjective, so I'm sorry if some of your favorite VNs are not here, and feel free to disagree with my choice. Anyway, let's see the best translated VNs in 2022 that I chose here, and of course, the rank and the score can change in the future. For the scores, I'll use today's (April 8th, 2024) scores for each VN.
For honorable mentions of 2022, I'll name Kamidanomi Shisugite Ore no Mirai ga Yabai (VNDB 7.13), Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori (VNDB 7.26), and Ren'ai x Royale (VNDB 7.01). That's all for 2022 honorable mentions.
10. Evenicle 2 (VNDB 7.41)
There's a drama behind the Evenicle 2 release because of the censorship on the trial version that removes the first sex scene. The censorship is not much help to add this on Steam anyway, thanks to a random ban from Valve. For the game, I thought it was an unnecessary sequel at first. However, after I played the trial, I found myself liking this. Of course, most people would understandably see this as inferior compared to the prequel, especially with no changes in the gameplay besides the healing system and skill gain, which are not much better than the prequel. For the premise, Alex, an apprentice doctor in a world with a deadly pandemic, heard the news of a beautiful girl getting sick. Because he's as pervert as Aster (the prequel MC), Alex starts to examine the patient, which leads him to discover that he can cure the beautiful female patient through sexual intercourse thanks to his hidden ability (I'm not making up the premise). After seeing the effect of the treatment, Alex concluded that his ability might be the key to eradicating the pandemic. Then he went to get his doctor's license, and while on the trip, he found himself treating several more beautiful female patients.
9. Ouchi ni Kaeru made ga Mashimaro Desu (VNDB 7.43)
After Shiravune localized both Primal Hearts and Study Steady, they went to localized one more VN from Marmalade, Mashimaro (released in 2017), so currently, we have four VNs from Marmalade that are translated (including Primal Hearts 2). In Mashimaro, our MC, Ryou, becomes homeless after being chased out of his house and forced to sleep in the park. One day, he met with a friendly, beautiful girl who fed him sweets and then introduced herself as Kanon. Being grateful, Ryou followed Kanon to her bakery, Marshmallow Tree, which was almost out of business because of a change in the opening hour and the arrival of a famous competitor nearby. As the responsible person, Ryou returned the favor by helping Kanon revitalize Marshmallow Tree by working as a part-timer there. It turned out that he was pretty competent, so he managed to make Marshmallow Tree successful quickly. Even though Kanon is the apparent main heroine (as shown in the beginning), Ryou can date another girl besides her. While Mashimaro here has a sweet and lighthearted story, it also has several lengthy sex scenes in the heroine's routes.
8. Otome * Domain (VNDB 7.49)
Shiravune manages to localize the Otome Domain, in that it's one of the known trap VN besides Otoboku and Tsuki no Yorisou. By the way, I added this based on my interest in the VN with trap MC. While the VNDB lists the connection with Boku to Koi Suru Ponkotsu Akuma (Koikuma), it's only for the trial version. But, since the heroines are the same as in Koikuma for being useless, we may call this Koikuma with the young ladies. In Otome Domain, we have the MC, Minato, who recently lost his grandmother, leaving him alone. At the funeral, a young lady, Kazari, offers Minato to take care of his needs. Said offer included enrolling Minato into the school that Kazari runs as the board chairwoman. However, Minato must cross-dress as a girl since the school is an all-girls school, and he manages to look as good as a girl, much to his dismay. After coming into the school, Minato finds out that Kazari has some quirk that makes her useless, and his dormmates also have some quirks that make them problematic. Having no choice, Minato decides to take care of their problem, which makes him ironically more feminine than the girls who enrolled in the school.
7. Cafe Stella to Shinigami no Chou (VNDB 7.56)
Yuzusoft finally decided to make a VN revolve around a cafe after featuring it several times in their previous VNs with Cafe Stella. When Cafe Stella was about to be released in Japan, Yuzusoft provided several 4-Koma videos featuring each heroine (including the side one). Said videos have English captions, which should indicate that Cafe Stella will be localized. Sure enough, Nekonyan announced they'd localize Cafe Stella in 2020 before finally releasing it last March as the 5th officially translated Yuzusoft VN (which includes Parquet even though it is just the experimental work). For the premise, we have our MC Kousei encounter a cute grim reaper, Kanna, after he somehow turned back into the past because of an accident that supposedly killed him, and Kanna tells Kousei that he's still not free from his grim fate yet. So Kousei decided to accept Kanna's offer to help her, with him having worked with Kanna to open the titular Cafe Stella. The story of Cafe Stella combines the supernatural (Kanna and her grim reaper work) and slice-of-life (obviously the cafe). Lastly, I can say that the waitress uniform looks nice, with the color scheme resembling the waitress uniform in Blend S.
6. Hello Lady (VNDB 7.62)
I admit that my initial interest in Hello Lady was because of the VAs, of which two, Eri Sendai and Yamamura Hibiku, were voicing Precure. Even without looking at those VAs, the VN is already well known. Many people wish to have this VN translated, although no company was willing to get the license until Nekonyan announced this in 2018. Afterward, it took more than 40 months before the release because the developer, Akatsuki Works, needed time to develop the engine for the complete edition (which includes the FD and an additional ending from the PSV version). After a long wait, we have Hello Lady release in January 2022. For the premise, we have Narita, who has been invited to The Academy as a transfer student by the chairman, rescue the kidnapped student council president Saku while also deciding to be daring by grabbing Saku's breast. Of course, Saku was furious about that, especially with Narita joining the council. While initially Narita is presented as a breast lover, actually Narita himself has come to the school with his hidden goal in mind, and he may find himself finding out that there's something more regarding his said goal.
5. Amatsutsumi (VNDB 7.82)
For some reason, Valve banned Amatsutsumi on Steam, thus making Sekai need to delay the release for a while before finally releasing it on the other platforms. While we can think of several reasons why Valve banned this, such as high school settings and the MC (Makoto) having sex with more than one girl, only Valve can answer that. In Amatsutsumi, we have Makoto, who lives in an isolated village and is already engaged. He wanted to set the journey to see the outside world because of his intense longing, so he started to do so. But then, he collapsed in the nearby town because he didn't prepare enough before leaving the village. After being saved by a passerby, Kokoro, Makoto uses his power to brainwash Kokoro through a word to make her think of Makoto as Kokoro's older brother. Then, Makoto decided to live with Kokoro's family as the first step to living as a regular human instead of someone with superpowers. Some days after, Makoto encounters a girl, Hotaru, who is immune to his power. After talking with Hotaru, Makoto promises to help the other by using his power. He will do so with all the heroines, who each have their circumstances.
4. Chaos Head Noah (VNDB 7.96)
Technically, this is a redundant release because we already have the Chaos Head translation patch from 2009, and Noah is mostly the same. That said, the developer added some new content, such as routes and a new opening, so we can consider it a new release despite several problems with the English releases, such as the ban by Valve before it got revoked and a high number of bugs. This release is significant as Noah is the very first VN of the Science Adventure series, and with this, now we have all translated Science Adventure VN available on Steam. For the premise, we have our loser MC Nishijou Takumi, an otaku who rarely leaves his room on the rooftop except to go to school occasionally. One day, he heard a rumor that a serial murder had happened around his premises in Shibuya. Since Nitroplus developed the original Chaos Head, the murders were very disturbing. After somehow stumbling upon one of the serial murder sites, Takumi encounters a cute girl with a lot of blood on her body, and naturally, he's frightened. After that, one way or another, Takumi finds himself in the middle of a serial murder case, which leads him to get dragged into it.
3. Tokeijikake no Ley Line -Asagiri ni Chiru Hana- (VNDB 8.17)
Compared to the 51-month gap between the Tokeijikake trilogy's first and second part releases, the second and last part releases are only eight months apart. It helps that Sekai and the developer had already ironed out the buggy engine by the time the second part was available last March, so they didn't need to wait too long to release the whole trilogy. As for the premise of the entire trilogy, it started with our MC Koga attending the mysterious magical school located in a remote area. Sometime after entering the school, Koga accidentally breaks a quite expensive statue. Unfortunately, Koga has no money to compensate for it. To have Koga take responsibility for the broken statue, the principal paired him with the head of the Bureau for the Investigation of Special Affairs, Ushio (the main heroine of the Tokeijikake trilogy). Said Bureau is responsible for investigating magic-related incidents in the school, and eventually, the Bureau would investigate the massive incident in the last part. Since both Koga and Ushio here are pretty stubborn, the meeting between those two ended in bad blood. Of course, both of them would develop their relationship throughout the trilogy.
2. Hakuchuumu no Aojashin (VNDB 8.53)
Around the time when the English version of Aojashin was released, several headache-inducing shenanigans happened. Those shenanigans are the writer's "smooth" way of addressing the censorship critic, the license problem for another Laplacian VN, and the setting change for the high school student heroine into a college student. While the English version here obviously didn't have 18+ contents because of the censorship, thankfully, a fan team worked hard to restore the removed contents and revert the change for the school student heroine. In Aojashin, we have a combination of Fata Morgana and Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V. The latter is because Laplacian used their previous VNs setting into Aojashin here, and ARC V did the same. Story-wise, it's closer to Fata Morgana because it and Aojashin have three initial stories/cases that converge into one main arc. Other similarities are that both have white-haired girls involved in the story, and that's where the similarities end. Unlike in Fata Morgana, where you start from the first story, in Aojashin, you'll randomly start in one of three initial cases. For the video, I'll use the Case 0 opening because Case 0 is the main arc of Aojashin itself.
1. Mahoutsukai no Yoru (VNDB 8.64)
After watching Evangelion, a man was getting inspiration to write a novel. However, the publisher rejected the novel because of its length. Some years later, after the man had been successful with Fate/Stay Night, he revisited his old novel. Yes, that man is Kinoko Nasu, and his old novel is Mahoyo with the full title Mahoutsukai no Yoru (literally translated as "A Magician's Night"). For the premise, we have Aoko (who, as we know, is Shiki's teacher in Tsukihime) suddenly chosen to become the head of a magician family, so naturally, she's underprepared. To prepare herself, she lives with the young witch Alice in her mansion to get some magic lessons. After some time, Aoko's classmate, Soujuurou, witnesses the duo using magic. Seeing no other choice, they force Soujuurou to live in the mansion. While the premise sounds like a slice-of-life story (and to be fair, it is), being a Type-Moon VN, there will be some battles with beautiful effects. Initially, Nasu planned Mahoyo to be the trilogy. But seeing that Nasu is still busy with FGO and promised to work on the sequels after he finishes with the Tsukihime remake (which only has the first half released in August 2021), it better not expect the sequels to be released soon.
Overall, 2022 still has some good releases, even though they're not as big as 2021. That said, I felt that some of the exciting releases concentrated on the fan discs, which, while it's not bad per se, I would prefer to see more exciting releases for the main title here. Anyway, now that we're in 2023 here, I hope we see more nice releases, especially from Nekonyan. Of course, I still want to see if JAST can keep their release pace, even with them sometimes releasing the Remaster of their old VNs. Lastly, while I don't know if I can look forward to Mangagamer and Sekai's new title, I hope they can release some interesting VNs.
PS - Since we have William Shakespeare in Aojashin, I allude to his play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, by changing "Night's Dream" into "Magician's Night" (because Mahoyo release), so we have "A Midsummer Magician's Night" as the title.
I suppose we can say that 2021 here is the continuation of 2020 in that we're still in the middle of the pandemic, although there's a lot of vaccination right now. Of course, it won't stop the releases of the translated VNs, and it's nice to see that JAST is very aggressive regarding the release in 2021, so much so that it can rival both Mangagamer and Sekai for yearly release numbers. With that done, let's see which translated VNs I chose as the best-rated ones in 2021. I'm sorry if some of your favorites are not here, so you may disagree with my choice because I may be subjective. Lastly, the scores and rank can fluctuate in the future, and for the reminder, the scores are the VNDB score for each VN as of today (April 8th, 2024).
Before I go with the best-rated translated VNs, I'll write the honorable mentions for 2021 here. The honorable mentions are Onigokko (VNDB 7.16), Parquet (VNDB 7.13), and Ninki Seiyuu no Tsukurikata (VNDB 7.27). That's all for the honorable mentions of 2021.
10. Ren'ai Karichaimashita (VNDB 7.28)
If you look at Sankaku Ren'ai (developed by the same company and localized by Nekonyan), you know what to expect from Karichaimashita here. As a reminder, it's the comedy with a love triangle that's not as dramatic as White Album 2 (WA2), and we'll have it here. Karichaimashita is about our MC, Yuki, who keeps thinking about how money is the only thing that makes his little sister happy, thanks to his family's unique circumstances that forced Yuki to be the family's breadwinner. So, of course, he'll keep working for money if his sister can be happy, so much so that he calls himself having a Sister Complex. One day, Yuki saw a job advertisement for a company that allows clients to have fake relationships; the job is quite common in Japan, as shown in the infamous Kanojo Okarishimasu manga. While the job is highly suspicious, Yuki decides to apply anyway since it offers the high pay he desperately needs. Little did he know back then that he would keep involved with the clients, which in turn allowed him to start a relationship with one of the clients, and here we're going to have four and a half routes because, while technically there are five heroines, two of those heroines are the twin who's sharing Yuki.
9. Primal x Hearts (VNDB 7.40)
Shiravune released several interesting visual novels in 2021, one of those VNs being Marmalade's Primal Hearts series. While it's inevitable because we also have Study Steady (another Marmalade VN) localized by them, it's still nice to see they license the Primal Hearts series. The series features a school with two student councils and an even number of students, thus ensuring a deadlock situation every time a vote happens. The MC's role in the series is as the hope to break the deadlock because he's the 777th student, hence his Three Sevens nickname. So, both councils inevitably approach the MC to persuade him to join one of the councils to have whichever side has the MC win the future votes. While I understand that the second Primal Hearts here has received some improvements, I list the first one here because the Primal Hearts series reminds me of the Lunar series, with both Lunar and Primal Hearts developers improving their second game. So the first Primal Hearts here should make a nice parallel with the first Lunar, and I know it's quite a stretch to compare Lunar and Primal Hearts, seeing that both series have a lot of differences anyway.
8. Sugar * Style (VNDB 7.44)
Compared to other translated Smee VNs (HaremKingdom and Making Lovers) with unique MCs, Sugar Style here didn't have the MC become a king in a different world or already be working. But instead, our MC has just started his college life. For the premise, we have Kazuki (MC's default name), whose parents fled and left him with debts while also being deceived by an evil woman. So, after a string of bad luck, he turns the page by entering the college with the dormitory, which his cousin manages, only to find out that the dormitory is for females. Then Kazuki accidentally stumbles into a perverted situation. Thus, his relationship with the female residents, the heroines, has a rocky start. However, as per Smee VN, Kazuki will gradually get closer to the heroines. He'll then enter a relationship with one of the four heroines in the original version (which Nekonyan localized) and with the two additional heroines, including Kazuki's cousin, in the untranslated console version (that does not have sex scenes). Like other Smee VNs, besides obviously still having the usual comedy, it also has a mini fan disc, but we don't know if Nekonyan will localize it.
7. Dohna Dohna -Issho ni Warui Koto o Shiyou- (VNDB 7.88)
After Shiravune brought the Primal Hearts series in July 2021, we have Dohna Dohna as another exciting license released by them in October 2021. Dohna Dohna, as in the latest gameplay VN by Alicesoft, which, as we know, is attempting to localize Evenicle 2 on their own (so perhaps Shiravune will localize Evenicle 2 later), as well as having a partnership with Mangagamer to localize the Rance series. For Dohna Dohna itself, while the graphic style resembles Persona 5, the story is more similar to FF7. In the story of Dohna Dohna, it has an outlaw group that lives in a city tightly controlled by a massive corporation. The group does everything it can, including robbing the facility related to the corporation, to fight them. While we usually think that the group is in the right, in this case, we can't exactly say that the group is better than the corporation morally because we have the group kidnapping several women to sell them as prostitutes to get money. Finally, while the graphics are quite colorful, it should go without saying that the content is quite dark, especially with the already mentioned prostitute and some disturbing sex scenes in the Bad Endings.
6. Rance Quest (VNDB 7.93)
After some time of waiting (11 years for the ones who play fan translations of Sengoku Rance and 17 months for the ones who play the Mangagamer version), we finally have Rance Quest released in English. As for the story, after Rance encountered a problem in Sengoku Rance, he decided to find a way to resolve his situation. Of course, Rance being Rance, his inability to control his libido caused trouble, and he's been struck with a curse by a woman with whom he had sex. Said curse renders any woman who has sex with Rance weakened, as well as making Rance not able to have sex with weaker women, so there will be many restrictions on Rance's having sex. Facing the situation, rather than trying to find a way to remove the curse quickly, Rance decided to enjoy his life as much as possible. Of course, he'll do so by searching for many strong women so that he can have sex with them. Rance Quest is the eighth part of the Rance series that Alicesoft developed, and Quest here is a breather episode with Rance doing a lot of quests that resemble the old RPG (hence the word "Quest") with him recruiting a lot of characters (up to 72) to join his adventure.
5. Musicus (VNDB 8.00)
When Overdrive worked on this VN, which was planned as their last VN before they went with the Virtual Youtuber stuff, they found themselves without enough funds to develop the VN. And so they did the crowdfund to get the funds, with the result that they managed to gather 130 million yen. According to what I've seen, Musicus has been well received, with some calling it a thought-provoking VN if we borrow the late Conjueror's word, though whether that's true is up to each person. But I know for sure that we have Kei, who is currently in a dilemma regarding his future after encountering the difficulties of becoming a doctor like his father. Of course, as per Overdrive MC, Kei finds himself drawn to the music after watching a concert. From there, he does his best to perform in a band after being suggested by a band leader. Unlike the writer's previous Overdrive VN, which also focused on the music band (Kira Kira), in this one, the writer shows what would happen if one made a band for a living, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. Since Musicus didn't have an opening, I'll use the ending credit of Yako's route for the video below.
4. Kin'iro Loveriche (VNDB 8.20)
Kini'iro Loveriche, aka Kinkoi, is the first translated Saga Planet VN that Nekonyan localized. With that, we finally have Saga Planet VN translated, which defies people's belief that it's impossible to see it happen, especially with several failed Saga Planet VN translation projects we've had in the past (Hanasaki Work Spring, Hatsuyuki Sakura). As for Kinkoi, the premise here is that Ouro carried Princess Sylvie (her full name is too long) in Princess Carry (how appropriate), which obviously would alert her bodyguards because it made Ouro look like he had kidnapped the princess. Since Ouro himself caught Sylvie's attention, she had arranged for Ouro to attend the school with her. While the premise suggested that this is just a comedy VN with rich people as heroines, it turned out that there's more to Kinkoi than meets the eye, particularly regarding the story of one of the heroines. The VN also has a fan disc, Golden Time, with two routes for the side heroines, after stories for each heroine (including the side one), and an alternate ending for a specific heroine. Just in case you're asking if the fan disc will be licensed or not, Nekonyan has already licensed it, and so far, the translation work on it is going pretty well.
3. 9 -Nine- Yukiiro Yukihana Yukinoato (VNDB 8.60)
I said the serial release is not ideal for releasing a VN. But after I read one of the reviews about Nine, perhaps going serial here is the best way to make the writer, Kazuki Fumi, build up the story arc because not all writers can make the complete story arc from the beginning. That said, I'm still not a fan of serial release. In Episode 4, after Kakeru gets close to the other heroines, Miyako, Sora, and Haruka, in the previous episodes while investigating the incidents in the city, this time Kakeru gets close to Noa. More importantly, Kakeru finally confronts a person who's been causing the incidents after getting some help from an unexpected fellow. While there's Shinshou, aka New Episode, which is said to be the sequel to Episode 4, the New Episode is more like the fan disc than the sequel. The New Episode contents are the after stories for the heroines with some wrap-up for the story, so Episode 4 here is the grand finale for the Nine series itself. Izumi Tsubasu is still in charge of the design, so we still have her beautiful drawings. Sekai did well on this by releasing four episodes of Nine within two years, contrasting with when they needed three years to release two VN of the ReLord trilogy.
2. Soukou Akki Muramasa (VNDB 8.91)
We knew JAST got the license for Muramasa back in 2012 when one of TLWiki's users, Makoto, became the translator for JAST. JAST being JAST, we didn't see them give us many updates on Muramasa, so people decided to give up on it. At least until July 2021, when JAST abruptly announced that Muramasa would be released shortly, and with their new pace, JAST did manage to release it in August 2021. For the premise, we have an alternative world where Japan (ruled by the Rokuhara shogunate with an iron fist and has unique warriors called musha) has a roaming monster that terrorizes the country by killing many people. Enter Kageaki with his eyes set on it, and then he hunts it down. While usually, we would say that Kageaki is the hero, one should remember the arc word, "This is not a story of the heroes." So, of course, Kageaki will make many horrible decisions to achieve the goal. Since the writer, Narahara Ittetsu, did write both Hanachirasu and Muramasa, with the former having a lot of deaths, sure enough, Muramasa has tons of people dying left and right. Besides that, Narahara here also provides some writing that can be thought-provoking.
1. White Album 2 (VNDB 9.00)
I still remember in 2011 when my roommate listened to the WA2 Closing Chapter opening, and obviously, there was no translated version of it back then. The Todokanai group worked hard to translate WA2, but it took years to finish because of its length. After several years of work, they finally released the full translation patch on December 22nd of last year, making it a nice early Christmas gift from them. For the premise, we have Haruki, who is searching for additional light music club members to perform at the school festival. He manages to get two girls, Setsuna and Kazusa, to participate. Haruki had no idea at the time that he would become embroiled in a dramatic love triangle that would last into his adulthood, and it would be pretty messy, given that each involved person had numerous flaws. WA2 here is Maruto's last VN before he moves on to write the light novel (Saekano), and as I said, Maruto here did write each of the characters like in Damekoi, only with him putting more focus on two heroines instead of just one like in Damekoi. As for the video, I used the Closing Chapter opening because it's where most of WA2 content goes.
That's all for my list of translated visual novels released in 2021. To conclude, 2021 is pretty much an exciting year, with two of the most well-received VNs (Muramasa and WA2) getting translated so we can finally play them in English. Lastly, with JAST's new strategy in that they decided to release the download version first to quicken the releases, I look forward to what they can do in 2022. Of course, I also look forward to what the other companies can do in 2022, especially regarding Nekonyan and Shiravune, despite the latter's liking to use bothersome Denuvo for DRM.
PS - For the title, I combined the words "winter" (the WA2 season motif) and "musha" (the unique warrior in Muramasa), resulting in "The Winter Musha," which is similar to one of Captain America's films (The Winter Soldier).
Visual Novel Translation Status (24/03/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Reviews, and for the title I'll tell it in PS. As for this week, compared to the last one we have several updates, so in theory this should be interesting week. That said, those updates are not quite interesting to me for the most part, but it still worth to note anyway. So overall this week is an almost average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Shinzou Translation released Nagi no Koi on last Sunday. For the VN itself, I knew that it has two love stories with one of the story has amnesiac MC, while the other story has the MC find his happiness in the arranged marriage after he failed yo become the lord in his territory, and I also knew the team got the approval from the developer to work on this. Feel free to get Nagi no Koi of you're interested, and have fun. For the rest of fan translation updates, we have Akagoei 3 is at 48.12% translated, Majikoi Ryouken After is at 46.19% translated, Taima Seiko Alice is at 20% edited, and Ushieta is at 35.6% translated with Airi's route is past halfway (55.7%) translated.
HuneX announced they currently will release Steam Prison FD within this year, and as the bonus there'll be English version of it with Mangagamer responsible for the translation work. No much to say other than it's nice that it's also will be available on PC. We also have PQube announce new Memories Off, SINce Memories, with the most important thing is it'll be available in English, which mean it's the first Memories Off VN in English. To elaborate, Memories Off series is the series of charage by KID, and Never7 slice of life writing is obviously influenced by Memories Off series with the sci-fi plot appear near the end. For the release time, it's still unknown when PQube will do it. That said, I know the artist is the one who work on Aonatsu Line and Yukiiro Sign (Also Aquatope anime), and I immediately recognize her style when I saw the announcement.
Aniplex announce their newest VN, Tanetsumi no Uta, with them will release it in this year. For it's premise, it's about the 16 years old young girl Misuzu who's going to the adventure to face True Winter with Misuzu's late mother in her youth, Misuzu's future daughter, and Misuzu's stillborn little brother. Aniplex also announced the exact release date for their (Redundant) Tsukihime Remake Part 1, and it'll be on June 27th later. It's too bad there's no PC version announcement of this, although it may took a year to work on it just like Mahoyo.
Shiravune finally announced the exact release date for Kara no Shoujo 2, and it'll be on April 19th later. What I can say is the release are mostly redundant since we already have the translation for Kara no Shoujo 2 since 2015 thanks to Mangagamer. If anything else, at least Innocent Grey made the trial (Which is very different from the main story) as the Prologue in the new version that Shiravune took. Lastly, they also announce Shukusei no Girlfriend 2 which is inevitable if we see Criminal Border. The sequel here put the focus on the new girl to focus is Maja, although she's not exactly new with here appear in the first part as the magical girl who antagonize the MC. No idea of the exact release date for this, but Shiravune listed Q2 2024 (ie at most June 30th) as the estimation time, and let's hope there won't be any complication before the release.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
PS - Since we have new VN announcement with the artist herself worked on Yukiiro Sign, I made the parody of Sherlock Holmes 'The Sign of the Four' with I changed 'Four' into 'Two' because we have Kara no Shoujo 2 exact release date announcement, which is very fitting seeing both of Sherlock Holmes and Reiji (Kara no Shoujo MC) are detectives.
Visual Novel Translation Status (17/03/2024)
For this week title, because we have Shiravune localized redundant NTR VN with Steam title 'Saving Mrs. Hinako', I just make a parody of Saving Private Ryan movie with I changed 'Ryan' into 'Hinako', and obviously Hinako's setting is not the private in military like Ryan. Anyway as for this week, turned out Shiravune has new announcements in which it's quite an interesting one to a degree, namely Amanatsu. So with that, overall this week is an almost plain one and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Like I say beforehand Shiravune did release a redundant NTR VN with the full uncensored title 'Saving Mrs. Hinako with My Cock', which obviously mean the MC will have a lot of sex with the titular Hinako. I did say redundant is because we already have the fan translation of this back in 2021, although honestly I didn't pay much attention to it back when it's released at that year. For the premise of the VN itself, we have the MC who find out his childhood crush Hinako has already moved on and have a daughter. At first the MC felt very hopeless now that his crush has move on without him, although knowing that Hinako's marriage is not exactly a happy one with her husband do his best to cheat from Hinako as much as possible, the MC decided to take the action to take Hinako from her husband, which including have sex with her. Note that Shiravune did use the new translation instead of the available fan translation, so fell free to pick whichever translation you prefer.
For this week fan translation updates, we have ChuSingura is at 40.83% translated, Taima Seiko Alice is at 15% edited, Akagoei 3 is at 37.62% edited, and Ushieta is at 28% translated with Airi's route is at 18.9% translated. We also have the big progress from Konosora Snow Present, with the most recent status is it has been fully edited and the team will tackle the image editing before compile the final patch.
Last but not the least, we have Shiravune's new announcement, Amanatsu which is quite an interesting one. The reason on why I say it is because it's bigger title from Azarashi Soft which usually has better graphic, and doubly so considering so far we only have smaller title from Azarashi. With now Shiravune announced Amanatsu, at least now we know on who has better chance to finally pick the most well known Azarashi Soft VN, Amakano series. For Amanatsu, while it's very obvious that it has good graphic, the other notable one is the writer of the VN is Hayase Yuu, who as we know wrote several comedy VNs for Smee, so we can expect the comedy that usually available in Smee VNs on Amanatsu. For the release date, this time Shiravune decided to be secretive about it, although if Mangagamer placeholder date (July 31st) is any indication, we may have Amanatsu available within this year (2024) so let's wait and see here.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (10/03/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. For the title, because we have Criminal Border 2nd Part release and it has same core staffs (Writer and director) as Nine series, once again I make the parody of Nine series by adding 'Liminal' (From Criminal Border Steam version name) in front of it. Also, the full name of 2nd Part heroine is Kotoko Tenshigawara, so I use her name as the subtitle. As for this week, the most obvious highlight is Shiravune just released Criminal Border 2nd Part. That said, there's a big surprise from fan translation section, namely we have Frisay Studio (The translation team behind Imaimo and H2O) decided to tackle another translation project with the VN they translate is Ushieta. Overall, I guess this week is slightly better compared to the last one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
I did mention that Sekai has some problem when it come to bring their big title, although turned out they can still bring some updates. That said, unfortunately the updates are not in regard of their bigger title, but instead it focused on two of their shorter VNs, Sheol and Nekonin ExHeart Spin, with both of the updates are listed as waiting for build on top being fully translated and edited (Also additionally the QA work on Sheol is already 40% done). Well, I can only say that at least Nekonin has good graphic like usual, and Sekai tried to do their best to release new title despite their own problem.
From fan translation, we have ChuSingura is at 40.64% translated, Taima Seiko Alice is at 10% translated, Majikoi Ryouken After is at 23.96% translated, and Akagoei 3 is at 33.96% edited along with 7.42% in QA. There's also an update in regard of Ginharu, which can be summed as the hacker just manage to have time to work on it with the estimated release time is April at the earliest. To elaborate more, turned out the staffs is just finished do the final QA passes for both of Mizuha and Yuzuki routes, and right now they preparing to do the playtesting (Think like testing in Mangagamer's usual updates). Like I say beforehand, Ushieta was picked up by Frisay Studio after it's been dropped back in 2018 by the older translator, and so far the progress is quite well with it's been past a quarter (25.4%) translated. Oh yes, there's also Otogirisou release, and I only know it's 1992 horror VN for SNES in which it popularized sound novel format with it has no character sprites.
Lastly, we have Criminal Border 2nd Part. While obviously we know that it's the continuation of the first part, unlike Nine in which it has little sister heroine Sora, in here we have Kotoko as the heroine with her is the daughter of the prominent yakuza leader. Also unlike Nine series in which each part is some sort of alternative continuation, Criminal Border is the linear story, so the second part here is the continuation from the first part ending. In second part here, after the MC and their friend got into crippling debt with yakuza after doing their best selling the electronic drug, they have no choice except to turn to Kotoko, with the hope that she being the daughter of the yakuza leader may be able to help the group to be free from the debt. No much to say here other than go get Criminal Border 2nd Part if you've been waiting since 1st Part ending and didn't mind the remaining two untranslated upcoming parts, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
As for this week title, because we have Gears of Dragoon 2 released last week and Ginka released in this week with 'gin' in the titular heroine name mean 'silver' and she herself has blue eyes, I decided to make a parody of Yu-Gi-Oh card Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon which is quite infamous in OCG by changing 'Red-Eyes Dark' into 'Blue-Eyes Silver, so we have 'Blue-Eyes Silver Dragoon' (I don't know though if Konami will make that card as the main support for Blue-Eyes archetype in the future). In regard of this week, what I can say is that we have a number of releases, such as Aquarium and Ginka. Besides the releases, we also have age started Kiminozo crowdfund, and more importantly finally Irotoridori entering QA work. Overall, I guess this week is an average one, and so let's see what I can write in regard of it.
It seems that Valve in the mood for being obstructive, so unfortunately Sekai need to delay Usonatsu release just like Shukusei no Girlfriend delay with the main reason is that Valve still not accepted the build that Sekai submit to them. That said, at least Sekai currently do some scheduling work for Animal Trails FD, in which it's almost certain that it'll be their next release. We also have Shiravune manage to release Taimanin Asagi which thankfully not delayed, and other than it's good to see available on Steam after being banned once no much to say besides that it's redundant release because we already have the fan translation of it since 2008, although then again it may worth to get Steam version seeing that the translation may be better compared to the older one.
PQube released Archetype Arcadia back on 24th, and from what I see it's about a world where the disease afflicted the world with the only safe place is inside the virtual reality game, so obviously our MC decided to do full dive in order to be safe from the disease and also to save his sister who already been afflicted by the disease. Other than premise, what I know is that it's quite underrated with some didn't like on how the story goes, and also it's quite lengthy. We also have Aquarium with the VTuber Minato Aqua become the main heroine, and in Aquarium we going to have the MC who is a noble heir managed to have the romance with his maid Minato Aqua. I also should mention that both are also available on Steam, which is good if you only have PC, and more importantly want to know if there would be PC version for those seeing that initially there's no announced Steam version, which might be because they'd wait for Valve to accept the build.
From fan translation, we have Shin Koihime Musou is at 68% edited, Tsuma Netori is at three quarter translated along with 70% proofreading, ChuSingura is at 32.32% translated, and Akagoei 3 is at 59.03% translated. We also have Shangrlia 2 translation patch release, and I only know it's very old gameplay VN that was released in 1993. Daybreak Translation announced the winner of their next project poll, and the winner is Tsujidou Virgin Road which not too surprising seeing that Trip teased it before scrap the plan along with Daybreak continuing Ginharu after Trip quit at two thirds translated. The Daybreak translator also announced he worked on Muv Luv Total Eclipse QA, which apparently is because there's many error in the initial translation and age ask the help to do QA work. Speaking of age, they started the crowdfund for their Kiminozo remake, and so far it's going well with the current progress is at 65% funded with 61 days left, which is really good if we consider that the crowdfund is started on 27th.
We also have Sekai no Subete release, although to be honest I didn't pay much attention to it other than I knew it's been banned on Steam for some unknown reasons. The premise of the story is about the MC who came back into his hometown after eight years in Tokyo and find himself there's no place for him, at least until the MC meet with the girl from the music club which in turn made the MC think that he's not the only one who think like that. Go get Sekai no Subete if you're in the mood to playing the VN with the art from beginning 2000's anime (The VN is from way back in 2002), and have fun. Oh yes, there's also Hana Awase Switch version only release, while as for Mangagamer version that has PC version it's still unknown when they'll release it.
Last but not the least is obviously Ginka release, but before going to that I'll mention that Nekonyan finally do the QA work for Irotoridori while also open the Steam store of it, which mean the time for its release is almost close, so good for Nekonyan to have their beloved VN almost ready for the release after several years of working and obstacle, especially with Irotoridori is the reason why they formed the translation group (As Shinku Translation) in the first place. Anyway for Ginka itself it's about Ryuusei who live in Himejima lost his childhood friend Ginka, and thus he decided to move from Himejima in order to move on. Five years later when Ryuusei came back to Himejima, he encounter the girl who looks like Ginka from five years ago and forgotten everything (Including her own name), and yet the girl still remember on how she like Ryuusei. Seeing no choice, Ryuusei decided to help Ginka in order to have her catch up with the present. Go get Ginka if you've been waiting for it, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (03/03/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. As for the title, because we have Lunaria release at the last week along with Sakura Isekai Adventure release (With Winged Cloud realize that they should make it as GL VN with female MC), I combined both so we have 'Sakura Moonchild' as the title with 'Moonchild' is from Lunaria full title, Lunaria -Virtualized Moonchild-. For this week, one thing for sure is that it's calmer week compared to the last one. That said, it still has some updates, with the notable one is the new VN from Frontwing. Overall, this week is a below average one, and let's see what I can write about it.
Idea Factory released Sympathy Kiss, and this time they do it by themselves instead of asking Aksys Games (They keep released the otome game for Switch only though). For the premise of Sympathy Kiss, we have a female app designer was suddenly tasked to rebuilding the new app that was about to be terminated. As if the MC problem is not enough, she was tasked to work with several handful handsome men, although this may be a boon for the MC seeing that she can end up together with one of the handsome co-worker. Go get Sympathy Kiss if you want it, and have fun. Speaking of otome VN, we also have a new one called Ryuusei Fantasia with the premise is the female MC was tasked as the producer (Like in Idolmaster) of the idol group which consist 14 handsome male idol. The most notable thing is that it'll be available sometimes in this year, and more importantly there's PC version planned so you didn't need to buy Switch just to play Ryuusei Fantasia later. Oh yes, we also have Shiravune announced the exact release date for Holy Slave Academy, and it'll be on April 2nd later.
For this week fan translation, we have ChuSingura is at 40.24% translated with Chapter 2 is at 71.64% translated, Taima Seiko Alice is at 5% edited, and Akagoei 3 is at 30.7% edited along with 0.82% in QA. There's also the big update in Majikoi Ryouken After, with the current progress is at 17% translated. Note that Daybreak change the way to note the progress in Ryouken After from script file count into percentage, and for the info if we keep using the script file count it would be equal to 7 out of 17 script files translated.
For new VN from Frontwing, it's called Lilja and Natsuka: Painting Lies with them will release it on June 6th later. While it looks like GL VN from the first glance, it's still too early to tell. What I know is that the writer is the one who wrote euphoria which as we know is quite disturbing. Anyway, the story of the VN is goes like there's two female who consist of blind painter (Lilja) and her assistant (Natsuka), and both of them apparently have some kind of dark past that they want to move on from. Note that Frontwing already provided the Steam store page of it along with both Lilja and Natsuka have anime VAs ,so at least we can be sure there won't be disturbing sex scenes like in euphoria.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (25/02/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and as for the title because we have Shiravune just announced Mashiro Iro Symphony while we know that Qruppo parodied Digimon Adventure opening in their Nukitashi 2 opening, I decided to parodied Digimon Adventue by changing 'Digimon' into 'Panditty' with Panditty is the translation choice from Shiravune in regard of Mashiro Iro mascot character (Pannya), so we have 'Panditty Adventure'. Anyway, for this week it's still quite interesting to a degree, albeit not as much because of the release like the last one, but rather because Shiravune did a surprise move by announced Mashiro Iro Symphony which if we know it's one of the most requested VN to be translated. Other than Mashiro Iro announcement, we have Lunaria release and QA work for Aoi Tori. Overall, this week is an above average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Cherry Kiss released their nukige with the heroine has very big breast, and turned out it's magical girl nukige with the premise the former magical girl must came out of the retirement because the cadre of the evil organization cause some chaos. However there's a catch, namely the magical girl power is came from sex (Of course) which her husband can't provide, so her only hope to get the power is to have sex with the MC who is her husband's disciple (That's why there's NTR in the title). We also have Lip Trip release which has nice art courtesy of Chigusa Minori who work on GL manga (Shino to Ren, Convenient Semi Friend), and it's not coincident that Lip Trip is GL VN. Go read Lip Trip if you're in mood for short GL VN with the office setting, and have fun. There's also some small reference of Omegaverse in Lip Trip, and I only know that there's three additional gender in there with the verse is usually used for BL work. Speaking of BL, we'll going to have Paradise released on April 26th later.
This week we have ChuSingura reached 40% mark translated. For the other fan translation progress, we have Akagoei 3 is at 28.54% edited along with 0.08% in QA and Taima Seiko Alice is at 35% translated. Daybreak also finally starting work on one of their planned project, namely Majikoi Ryouken After in which it's the after story for Majikoi A that tell the story on how Yamato will get closer to Margit (Who also called Ryouken) and her squad, which inevitably will lead Yamato to have sex with the whole squad. Not exactly my favorite when it come to what I want to see it translated, but at least it's there if one want more Majikoi. Oh yes, currently 1 out of 46 script files of Ryouken After has been translated, or in percentage it is equal to 2.09% translated.
Nekonyan has already started the QA work for Aoi Tori, and I just hope that it'll goes well seeing that the risk for it is quite high, especially from Purple Software deadline on top the rude Wake-Up Call from Valve in form of Tenshi Reboot ban with Valve usually take their time too much when reviewing the build (Like in Amazing Grace case). Speaking of take their time, the reason Visual Arts released Lunaria for console only right now might be because Valve reviewer is too slow reviewing Lunaria despite the VN is initially available in PC. For Lunaria's premise, it's about the MC Tabito who is a genius gamer is the virtual online met a girl in the Moon who is also AI Avatar introduce herself as Lunar-Q. With Lunar-Q did want to see the Earth, Tabito do his best to make Lunar-Q wish came true. Lunaria itself is another short VN from KEY, although unlike Tsui no Stella it's quite light. Go get Lunaria if you want more KEY VN and also have Switch, and have fun.
Shiravune released Ego's Spark, and I can assurance that it has good art courtesy of Study Steady artist. Oh yes, it has robot girl heroine who is designed as sex robot and yet develop the emotion of dislike sex. Obviously it won't stop the VN to have sex scene, so the MC obviously will help the robot girl to teach the girl to like sex. Go get Ego's Spark if you've been want to play it. Lastly, there's Shiravune new title, with said title is Mashiro Iro Symphony, and of course they also got Sana Edition with Shiravune understandably chose to translated 2023 HD version. The main attraction of Mashiro Iro is obviously Tsubasu's art which is said to be quite beautiful. That said, Mashiro Iro is more or less a moege with the premise the MC school is about to be merge with the all girl school, and the MC face the opposition at first. Note that it's more or less a moege, so obviously no dramatic drama like in Evangile (Despite the similar premise). As for the release, initially it was listed on April 26th, although they changed it to Q2 (ie at most June 30th) for understandable reason, so let's see if they can still release it on the initial date or not.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (18/02/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and as you can see we have a number of releases in this week so obviously this week is a very interesting one. Release wise, the most interesting one to me is obviously Irotoridori, although Nukitashi 2 release is also interesting on it's own. Other than the releases, Shiravune also shown to be quite aggressive in their announcements. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week, and I'll tell about the title in PS later.
For fan translation, this week we have Taima Seiko Alice is at 30% translated, ChuSingura is at 39.49% translated, and Akagoei 3 is fully translated along with 28.54% edited. Cherry Kiss also announced their newest nukige, in which the developer of the nukige decided to make the heroines breast as big as possible (Compared to the previous trap maid nukige). In case you want to try it, it'll be available in Saturday later. Almost forgot to mention that JAST also announce the exact release date for their high production value nukige, Sisters: Last Day of Summer, and the date is June 3rd later. Aksys did release one of their announcement, Death Mark 2, with the VN is also available on Steam (If only Aksys can also do the same for their otome VNs). For the VN itself, it's the continuation of the first Death Mark that was also localized by Aksys. Go get the VN if you want to see more Death Mark ever since you wait for it in 2018, and have fun.
Sekai finally reveal the progress for Nekonin ExHeart Spin, and both work are already past halfway with currently it's been at 60% translated along with 55% edited. They also finally released Nie no Hakoniwa, in which it's the first time Nekopara developer (ie Sayori) tried to make a horror mystery VN, and obviously Sayori show that she can still make good art despite that her role is the art director. That said, the VN also has some disturbing sex scenes, which to say is far more disturbing compared to Nekopara or Kara no Shoujo so much a certain someone said it almost rival Maggot Bait level of disturbing. For the VN itself, it's about the MC who was adopted into one of seven influential family in the isolated village is about to marry his step sister, and on their supposed happy day suddenly they are thrown into the nightmare. Go get Nie no Hakoniwa if you're curious on how Nekopara team can make horror VN, and have fun.
Since I mentioned Kara no Shoujo earlier, I should also mentioned that Shiravune is about to release the second game in June 30th at the latest. While it's quite interesting if not ironic on how Kara no Shoujo 2 was banned by Steam back when Mangagamer had the license of it, I can only say that it's redundant release despite it has prologue in which Innocent Grey usually only made it as the trial. Speaking of redundant release, we also have Shiravune announce Taimanin Yukikaze with them also will release it in June 30th at the latest. Shiravune also has one release with exact release date, and it's Criminal Border 2nd part with they'll release it on March 7th later. For Shiravune's release at this week, we have two. The first release is To Heart 2 Dungeon Traveler, in which it's the start of Aquaplus Dungeon Traveler series with the premise is some sort of To Heart 2 spin-off with the cast thrown into another world and must do the adventure as the RPG party. I don't know if it mean that someday we'll going to have To Heart 2 release by Shiravune or not, but at least I know it's the closest one when it come to To Heart 2 official release.
The biggest release from Shiravune on this week is obviously Nukitashi 2, in which it's more fitting to call it as sequel/fandisc with the closest comparison is Majikoi S (Has main story with after stories for each of the heroines). For the main story, it's about Junnosuke who is masturbate and thrown into another world with his former enemies (Three FS members), so obviously Junnosuke need to work together with his former enemies in order to go back to his world. Go get Nukitashi 2 if you want to play more of it, and have fun. Oh yes, I also should say that it's good to see Qruppo manage to have Nukitashi duology in English, which is an accomplishment compared to when Sol Press is almost ruin the chance to see first Nukitashi in English.
Last but not the least, we obviously have Irotoridori release, in which it's quite an ordeal to get it in English. To elaborate, it was started way back in 2012 with the translator has unfortunate health problem forcing him to stop the work after it's been at 91% translated. Some times after that, Akerou decided to work on this after he worked on Saku Saku, and obviously hoping that Sekai will pick it after they picked Hoshimemo. Then, Sol Press decided to pick this and they decided to do the Kickstarter because of the big scale of the project, only to have them failed to localize it. In 2022, finally Akerou (As Nekonyan CEO) manage to get the license to publish Irotoridori, and now we have it after 12 years of waiting. For the premise, it's about Yuuma who is a magician that has the healing power at the cost of his memories, and his life is about to get more busy after he save a girl who is falling down from the lighthouse. Go get Irotoridori if you've been waiting for 12 years, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
PS - For the title, obviously I parodied the first part of Narnia Chronicle (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) with I changed 'Lion' into 'Butterfly' and 'Witch' into 'Magician'. The 'Magician' part is obvious enough with Yuuma himself is a magician with it is the synonym for the witch, while for 'Butterfly' it's because Nukitashi 2 opening parodied Digimon Adventure opening with the opening song title of Digimon Adventure is Butterfly sang by the late Koji Wada.
Visual Novel Translation Status (11/02/2024)
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we're about to have Nukitashi 2 release I parodied it's opening song, BWLAUTE BEIRRD, by changing 'BEIRRD' into 'BEURTTERFLY'. For the info, Nukitashi 2 opening song title is the arrangement of 'Blue Water Bird' word, so in here I arranged the word 'Blue Water Butterfly'. As for why I chose butterfly, I'll speak about it later, but it's interesting to note that Shinsou Noise writer is also write Butterfly Seeker even with different company. Anyway, for this week there's no much announcement compared to the last week even though there's still some interesting updates, such as Ginharu estimation release time and Konosuna VN release. Overall, this week is an average one, and let's see what I can write about it.
We have Konosuba VN released, and the premise is about Kazuma who partying with three beautiful girls with quirk find a cursed tablet that allow the user to generate new outfit. The reason why it's cursed is because the tablet will reverse the personality of the people around the user, which Kazuma has bad luck to deal with the new personalities of his teammate. The only way to break the curse is by wearing the specific outfit, so Kazuma (And the player) will do his best to outfitted his party members in order to break the curse. Yeah, this is basically dress up game with Konosuba character, so you can get it if you're Konosuba fans and want to see you favorite female characters dressed up in different outfit. Obviously not my type of VN here, but it has its own fans, especially Konosuba fans.
Shiravune planned to release their NTR VN on March 12th later, and once again it's about the MC who do the NTR in order to save the heroine from her abusive husband. We have a company announced a trap VN, with the title of trap VN is Trap Yuri Garden. Obviously, the title is quite confusing, especially with trap yuri stuff, although from what I see in the synopsis it's more or less BL VN with trap hero and trap MC. While it's still not the kind of VN that I would get, at least I can say the staffs finally do the good job to make the MC looking good as the trap instead of just standard male MC design. Oh yes, the VN will be released sometimes on this year, and looking from past developer works and the planned length of this VN we may have another parts incoming. Sekai decided to moved up Nie no Hakoniwa release to 15th, which mean you can get newest Sekai VN earlier than planned
For fan translation, first of all we have a fan release the full translation patch of If My Life Were to End Tomorrow, with the VN tell the story about depressed girl who often thinking that she should die do one big mistake on her important exam, and obviously it ended in sad manner being utsuge and all (Although the translator think it's leaned toward nakige). For the rest of fan translation updates, we have Taima Seiko Alice is at a quarter translated, Nagi no Koi is fully translated and edited with the assets work is also done, ChuSingura is at 39.28% translated, and we have new updates from Konosora Snow Present with it is currently fully translated. Lastly, we have the updates from Daybreak with Akagoei 3 is at 98.59% translated along with past a quarter (26.66%) edited, and we have them announce the release estimation time for Ginharu Yuzuki's patch release time, in which the team will do their best to push the release in March or at the latest April 1st with them currently finising the last remaining work on Yuzuki's route, so let's wait and see if they can release Yuzuki's patch at around that time later.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
As for this time, I decided to make my 'Top 10 translated VN at 2016' even though it's very belated for obvious reason lol. Once again, I would use some data from Conjueror's video with some modification here, and also to show of how easy the score was fluctuated. As for the rules, no yaoi and otome VN here, localized name for alias, I'll list both of Erogamescape and VNDB score if possible, and the translation must be considered complete by VNDB as of February 12th 2024 with the VNDB score would be based on that date as well (Keep in mind that it can be fluctuate). Also beware of the spoiler when you played the opening here.
10. 11eyes -Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo- (VNDB 7.30, Erogamescape 76)
Back at 2011 there's a lot of talk about this VN with the translation project of this was ongoing, although of course nowadays the project is already dead. And then back at December 2016 we suddenly have Denwalts release his surprise translation patch, and turned out that it's 11eyes patch. While granted that the patch was have some faults, I say we should appreciate Denwalts's effort for translating a well-known VN. The premise is we have Kakeru who is an orphan lost his older sister five years ago, and his only friend is Yuka. One day both him and Yuka was thrown into a world with red sky that was called Red Night, and that it have a lot of monsters. Some time after he somehow survived, he find out that there's several other people who can enter the Red Night. From there Kakeru decided to unravel the mystery behind the Red Night which naturally will involve a lot of fighting. 11eyes here also offer an unique feature called Cross Vision in that we'll be able to see some scenes from other perspective, although of course most of the time we see things from Kakeru's perspective seeing that he's the MC.
9. Hakuisei Aijou Izonshou aka Nurse Love Addiction (VNDB 7.36, Erogamescape 75)
First of all, this is a shoujo ai VN which mean that there would be some yuri, although in regard if that it's quite limited though because this is all age VN. For Hakuai premise here, our MC Asuka who is quite a ditzy one find her picture book with the writing 'I want to be a nurse' and from there she find out that her childhood dream was to became a nurse. So from there Asuka and her more responsible younger sister entering the nursing school, and met with a very popular yuri couple who soon to be the sisters best friends. After that they'll gonna have a fun school life while learning to becoming the best nurse, ......if only it was as simple as that. Yeah, turn out things here was not as simple as it looks from the cover alone just like Symphonic Rain - I mention that because it was from same developer, and I guess some Symphonic Rain staff also involved in Hakuai here. As for the twist itself, I'll leave to the reader here in order to find out about that if you curious.
8. Tokyo Babel (VNDB 7.47, Erogamescape 71)
As for this VN, the premise was that the world was already destroyed and right now the last remaining of humanity live in the purgatory - by the way the name of the purgatory was the title drop. Also other than human world, both of heaven and hell also have some complicated situation as well so both of angels and demons live in purgatory as well. From there, all three races was travelling together in order to met the God to asking His atonement. Of course there would be no smooth sailing for this because sometimes some powerful being got crazy, and here's our MC job to combat the crazy one while on his quest to find out about himself. That premise aside, it's already well known for the fighting scenes here so it should be good if one yearn for that. Also interestingly this VN did have no sex scenes, and in exchange it have all star cast from the anime (Such as Hanakana and Miyuki Sawashiro) which probably blew most of Propeller's budget. For last note here, I just want to nitpick that why they need to use school as purgatory lol, and more seriously noted that Tokyo Babel was more in line with Shin Megami Tensei franchise in general.
7. Seinarukana -The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2- (VNDB 7.57, Erogamescape 75)
As for this VN, supposedly it was Eien no Aselia sequel although the connection was quite loose because it only have few returning characters from Aselia, and the casts are travelling between different worlds instead of stay in one world like back at Aselia. That said, the gameplay for this VN was improved so at least should be satisfy some people who's been interested with Aselia gameplay. As for the history of the translation, it was back at 2011 iirc that Seinarukana was started the fan translation. After that, the first translator was disappeared and then the team got another translator to hopefully finished the project. Too bad thought that the second translator did disappear as well making the project was in danger of the purge. After all that happened, Aroduc decided to help with the translation and out of those two he is obviously managed to finished the translation and sold it to JAST. Which obviously lead to long time - it was planned at 2013 iirc only to be delayed, before finally it was saw the release at 2016. Well all of those events were already in the past, and at the very least we could enjoy it in English.
6. Himawari (VNDB 7.60, Erogamescape 82)
There's an interesting case in regard of the English version release of this VN, namely that this VN spent too much time in testing case ie delayed. As for the reason, I could say it was probably because Frontwing released PSV version for Japan first before ported it to PC for overseas version, but it didn't matter now anyway because it's already released - the delay was last for more than half a year though because it was supposed to be released along with Tokyo Babel (Tokyo Babel released at March 31st). As for the premise of the VN, it was in regard of Youichi (The MC) who live in 2048 and still recovering in regard the loss of his dad who was dead along with many victims in the space plane crash, with him as the sole survivor of the accident and suffer amnesia to boot. After he find an alien girl at one night, Youichi was started to uncover his memory and the truth behind the accident. For a bit more trivia, Himawari was released as doujin first before Frontwing took the attention to this and adding all star cast from anime as the seiyuu. As for the difference, the original version contain sex scene while the remake version didn't have that (Duh).
5. Dracu Riot (VNDB 7.70, Erogamescape 77)
This VN did have many history back at April 2012 when the VN itself was translated by Insem after he finished with Hoshimemo. Long story short, we saw Insem withhold his almost completed patch for more than two years (And make the fan angry in the process), before finally release it back at April 2018 with Miu's route untranslated. Because the patch was incomplete, some members of Fuwanovel decided to to finish Miu's route. After that, back at September 2016 apparently there's a discord within the team, which resulting some team members leaked the patch. Although the patch then was taken down quickly, it's still too late though because the leaked patch was already spread. After that, back at AX 2017 Sekai decided to officially announce this in that the new version should be more polished compared to the leaked patch (According to Decay, the leaked patch was still unedited). As for the premise, it's more or less just vampire who live in an articifial island and MC was tried to adapt at the island after became the vampire. It have some sci-fi element and some plot about vampire origin, but the overall tone is lighthearted.
4. Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- (VNDB 7.86, Erogamescape 82)
What I first remember for Root Double is that I'm looking forward to the eventual English release of this VN since back at 2012, simply because GundamAce (The translator) said that this VN was on the almost same level as Ever17. Of course I was quite happy seeing that it was finally about to be licensed by Sekai back then, some problematic issue aside. Let's not forget that this VN was also have the delay as well, although the case was not as bad as Saku Saku though because at least they only delay it once instead of twice lol. As for the premise, it's involved a nuclear explosion in a facility and there's amnesiac firefighter captain who was supposed to rescue the people inside the facility, only to be trapped for 9 hours and from there he and his comrades must try to figure of how to save themselves. There's also another MC in which he was a high school student who also trapped inside the facility, and from there he also must figure out of how to save himself and his friends.
For more info, there a lot of number nine here (Nine enneagrams, nine characters, and nine hours) so I think it's more or less could be said as Nakazawa answer to 999 (Uchikoshi created that, and Nakazawa was Uchikoshi's former partner back at Ever17). For one more note here, GundamAce lament that Takeshi Abo was not composed the OST in Root Double, because he think that it would be more fitting. Oh, and forget to said that Sekai released Xtend version instead of original version, which is a better version because Xtend add some additional scenes. So I'd decided to post both opening here, and beware of the spoiler from 2nd opening below.
3. Rance VI - Zeth Houkai (VNDB 7.89, Erogamescape 84)
After Arunaru finished with Mamatoto, he worked on Rance 6 back at 2015. Back when he worked on the VN I was quite hyped, especially with someone said it's more enjoyable than FF12 in his blogpost and Arunaru is fast translator. However, I was disappointed when he decided to halt the project for some reasons, which turned out to be working with Mangagamer to translate Beat Blade Haruka. Thankfully, Mangagamer announced Rance 6 along with 5D and so Arunaru can use his translation. For Rance 6 itself, it's about Rance who came to Zeth after his adventure in 5D. In there, he find himself become the slave because he didn't posses magical talent while his slave Sill ironically treated far better than Rance (Sill herself is the mage). Zeth itself is a country where people treat mage as the first class citizen with non-mage as lower than human, so obviously there's a resistance movement to fight the unfair situation. Being scouted into one of the movement, Rance decided to join the resistance in order to get his revenge to the mages, be reunited with Sill, and more importantly have sex with as much as woman as possible.
2. Okujou no Yurirei-san aka Kindred Spirits on the Roof (VNDB 7.96, Erogamescape 79)
I admit that at first I didn't see this VN potential because of the simplistic graphic lol, and I thought that the format just 'yuri couple of the chapter' in which it's what Liar-soft like to do with their Steampunk VN. Turned out that's not the case because instead of just one time appearance, the couple actually did have enough development and more so if we decided to watch all the scenes from the perspective of the couple. For the premise, it was just a ghost yuri couple who couldn't move on because they want to felt each other but they wouldn't be able to do that for obvious reason, and so they decided to enlist Yuna's (The MC) help in order to established as many yuri couple as possible in order to allow the ghosts for learning how to express the feeling. Obviously heard that request Yuna was quite hesitant, but after did the first attempt reluctantly she started to like that and decided to be more active. Oh, and by the way this VN was partially voiced, although there will be full voiced version later though (JP only) - I hope that Mangagamer will license that version if possible.
1. Fata Morgana no Yakata aka The House in Fata Morgana (VNDB 8.79, Erogamescape 87)
Okay, at first I didn't trust this VN like Yurirei because of the graphic was quite unorthodox compared to usual VN, and more importantly the Bayesian score of this VN was quite low - turned out that more or less it's just determined of how popular the VN was. After seeing the good review for this VN, I decided to tried this and find it was quite good indeed, especially with the mystery behind the aforementioned house. As for the premise, you act as someone who got amnesia and a mysterious maid guide you through the doors which show the tale of the house's former residents, whose more or less were doomed to have a tragedy while hoping that you'll get your memories back. The VN itself was a doujin one so there's no voice in the VN, at least in translated version because there's also PSV version with voice acting. It also spawned drama CD which have voice acting as well, and the casts are well known for anime fan - some of them returned for voicing PSV version. Another good point of this VN was the OST, which some of those was sang by Gao. Here's one of the sample in form of the opening.
Well, that's all for the list here and hope you enjoying this. As for 2016 it was quite interesting contrast because there's more story content VN, compared to 2017 in which some of best VN there could be categorized as usual charage. Not that I said it was bad of course, but rather it's just something that I noticed here.
PS - For the title I'm simply combined both of Fata Morgana and Root Double subtitle (Before Crime After Days) into Fata Morgana Before Crime, which could be still an appropriate title for Fata Morgana fandisc lol.
Since we have Ninetail planned the Kickstarter for Venus Blood Ragnarok along with a fan released the less known VN with the title 'Fake World's End at 4 AM', I decided to make the parody for the later by changing 'World's End' into 'Ragnarok' so we have 'Fake Ragnarok at 4 AM', which is quite fitting because Ragnarok is known as the big war happening when the world is about to end according to Norse mythology. Anyway, for this week, let's just say that it's too bad that Steam decided to ban Tenshi Reboot which obviously cause the delay. Also yes I knew Nekonyan had done harsh but necessary action towards Sakuramoyu project, but it's still rough for Nekonyan to suddenly face the setback, so yeah overall I felt unpleasant to both incidents. My feeling for this week situation aside, overall what I can say about this week it would be another below average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Once again Steam decided to ban Tenshi Reboot, which mean Steam didn't bother to change their policy to their random banning, although seeing that it got its job done for years perhaps Valve know there's no point to change the system. To be fair though, its not the fault of Valve alone, but rather one of the reviewer who randomly tasked to reviewing Tenshi Reboot. Also to be fair, there are several questionable image even on the Steam build, so of course the random reviewer probably just banned it as the response of him being panic. Anyway, for now Nekonyan decided to ask for Hikari Field help to resubmit the build to Valve, so it will take a while before Tenshi Reboot ready for Steam release. Wake-Up Call in form of Tenshi Reboot ban aside, at least we have Nekonyan manage to have Irotoridori finally ready to be released with they'll release it on February 16th later, so feel free to note the date if you've been waiting for very long time (At most 12 years).
Cherry Kiss manage to release their newest nukige, and I only know that it has aunt heroine looking from the title alone. Idea Factory announce they'll localize the newest Date A Live VN (Ren Dystopia), and they stated it'll be available sometimes in this year. Speaking of announcement, PQube announced they'll release Konosuba VN on February 8th later. From fan translation, we have Akagoei 3 is at 81.95% translated along with 10.14% edited, Nagi no Koi is at 45% translated along with 20% edited and the assets has been 30% worked on, and ChuSingura is at 37.08% translated. For the release, actually Fake World's End at 4 AM is from the last week, but I forgot to write about it. From what I can see, apparently it's about the MC who entrusted the mysterious egg by the mysterious girl Feni who tell the story about fake apocalypse by God at 4 AM morning, and it has a big number of cameo from the developer previous VNs. Go get the VN if you didn't mind the pixel art, and have fun.
I admit that at first I didn't look at Venus Blood Ragnarok favorably, mostly because it's the sequel of Frontier with the VN ended satisfyingly. That said, like Evenicle 2 my feeling can be changed, and so I'm look forward to the KS that Ninetail will do later. For Ragnarok itself, it's about the world after Loki united the world (Obviously with a lot of help from the tentacle). Five hundred years later, Loki was disappeared and Odin was passed away, so the political condition become chaotic with the faction that favor anyone with strong divine blood got rid anyone who have dominant demon blood, with one of those people is the MC Vali. Some times later, Vali met a boy who introduce himself as Loki, and Loki offer Vali his wealth of knowledge and tactic to help Vali which he accept. No idea when the KS will start, although most likely it'll be started around March when they released Venus Blood Hollow fandisc later.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and see you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (09/10/2016)
For the title here while not very creative, the meaning should be very obvious here (Combining booby because we had many big boobs woman here and quest was from Dragon Quest in regard of the setting which remind us of old RPG here). While the image header VN (Kyonyuu or Funbag Fantasy) was not my taste here, at least I knew that our Bookwormotaku here like this very much. Oh, and if Decay here like the localized title here, he should be thanking Arunaru here for came up with the localized title here. And in case of some user here was curious about what's the premise from Mangagamer recently announced title, what I knew is that the husband found out about his wife adultery, and instead of filing a divorce to the court the husband decided to watch his wife had sex with her lover here (It's obviously NTR here). Not interested, but at least I knew that I didn't need to speculate for Mangagamer next partner at Atlanta later. Oh, and from Decay's musing here apparently that most of eroge artist didn't care too much about drawing penis and vagina because it'll be censored anyway by mosaic if we knew Japanese law here (Not that I care about mosaic in the first place though).
This week I kind of make this in hurry, so I'm apologized if I had some short coming here. Anyway for first updates here we had Sekai and their usual update here. Maitetsu here was had some significant update here by almost 5%, bringing the progress to 31.09% translated. Tenshin Rahman was had quite average progress here, and right now it was at 45.88% translated here. Chrono Clock, while the progress here was quite stable and slow here (32.92% translated here), I think it would be quite hard to fulfill the promise at Kickstarter if they didn't upped their weekly progress here. Although if the progress that shown here was also with editing and QC progress here it would be very different story here (Or maybe slightly different story here). Oh, and for Wagahigh we had slight update here after very long time here at 23.72% translated for the progress.
For fan translation usual progress here, we had Tsui Yuri finally continuing the translating progress here (74% translated), Bishoujo Mangekyou give usual update here (58% edited, 53% QC-ed, and 21% proofread), Majokoi also had usual update here (37.3% translated, 28.7% edited, and 12% edited. Quite slow imo). Speaking about Tsui Yuri here, for Dergonu's new project here (I'll call it Shibukuzu) right now he was in the middle of translating, but he didn't said which scripts so the progress was still at 1 script translated here. For other projects here, Nocturnal Illusion Renewal was 3.2% edited for the 2nd time here; Loverable was at 15.02% translated and common route at 57.65% translated; Ushieta translation was finished for one route here (Airi's) although they not willing to translating H-Scenes though; Shin Koihime Musou wad releasing sort of prototype patch (Because it was only translated one chapter here and it's raw translation here); and finally Dracu Riot completion was had some progress with the promise to releasing the patch with all route translated here with only Miu's route was fully edited here, and they also give promise to edited all of non-Miu heroine route here (I'll keep my eye on this, even though if I may honest here I'd already satisfied with all route translated here, edited or not). Oh, for more news here Guilty Crown Lost Christmas translation was released here, and from what I knew that yhis VN also had translation in Indonesian language (Personally I would be more happy if some Indonesian translator here had release complete translation patch for either Natsuyume and Hatsusaku here instead of Guilty Crown here, but whatever).
Before I close my review here, let me tell you that this week we also had pleasant surprise here for anyone else who wait or following Libra progress here (Me too). Right now they managed to finished translating Calen's route and they move on to Aoi's route with 15% translated for the progress here (Hopefully included editing and QC here for the progress once again). Oh, and obviously we must wait for next week if you looking forward to Mangagamer updates here.
That's all for my VNTS Review now, and see you next week.
Welcome to my top 10 list of translated VNs for 2018, and I think it's the right time to make this seeing that 2019 is almost come. As for the rule, there's no yaoi, otome, fandisc (ie Fata Morgana fandisc), and re-release (Konosora and Chaos Child). As for my list here, my taste here is quite personal so I'm sorry if some of your favorite titles didn't available here. Here's my list of top 10 translated VNs for this year, and I hope that you'll enjoy it. As for the score currently I'm based on the VNDB average score at July 27th, 2023, although it may be change in the future seeing that the scores is often fluctuated.
10. Hapymaher (VNDB 7.44, Erogamescape 78)
While I did admit that I was interested with this VN because of the costumes that the girls wear in the dream, I also can see that the costumes here is quite sexy so much that it did distract the reader's attention from the real meat of this VN which is the mind screw story that have some nakige element. I understand that the distraction may be deliberate, but it's still a waste though to have that kind of sexy costumes considering that this isn't nukige lol. As for the premise, it was in regard of the MC Tohru Naito who is burdened by his past that he was lost his family, so much that he can't rest because he did have lucid dream every night that he keep felt awaken in the dream. One night he saw two mysterious girls Alice and Maia, with the former was trying to help Tohru while the latter keep doing something bad. From there Tohru keep trying to find the solution to his own problem, while Maia somehow keep dragging the other girls into Tohru's dream. Since this VN involving people entering dream, what I can say is that it would be better to just enjoy the show instead of keep thinking seriously of how is that even plausible because it'll be hurt you head if you think it. Oh and almost forget to say that Hapymaher here did have Alice in Wonderland theme.
9. Sorcery Jokers (VNDB 7.47, Erogamescape 79)
The first 2018 release from Mangagamer that was announced back at Otakon 2016, and it's setting was in regard of a city which got some magic user that was exist after years ago when the magic was suddenly came to the existence. While at the first glance it made people felt more content seeing that they manage to a normal life, beneath that there's some secret plan happening and it affected the life of several people. Two of those people are Senri (The magic using criminal) and Mutsumi Haruto (Ordinary school boy), and from there they'd try to understand more about what's happening around them in which they may need have a hard time to do that.
As for the MCs each of the MC got two heroines each, and yeah I did say it in plural because in Sorcery Jokers we'll going to have two MCs (The aforementioned Haruto and Senri). That said, since this VN involving some combat and world building we won't see much romance at least until you finished the VN, and for more info this VN is a linear one with the feature that you need to unlock the scenes first. Also while there's only two MCs occasionally we also can see the perspective from three other heroines (The fourth heroine didn't have POV), or to put it simply it's like 11eyes Cross Vision system. Speaking about Haruto, I did hear that his 'not playing fair' catchphrase is annoying although I would say that Haruto here is overshadowed by far more cool Senri, and that you can slightly understand there's a reason of why Haruto is like that if you know the twist (The twist remind me of Tales of the Abyss's own twist).
8. Maitetsu (VNDB 7.71, Erogamescape 77)
Since the heroines here are designed to look like child, Lose was afraid of the ban for overseas release so much that they censored panty shot in the VN as well. That said, it's still fair enough compared to what Pulltop did to Miagete because at least Sekai also released the 18+ patch for this in that it unlock the sex scenes if you didn't mind with it. Nowadays there's also the patch to restore the censored contents, so censored contents shouldn't be an issue anymore. For the premise here, we got out MC Soutetsu who suffer train accident in his childhood come back to his hometown in order to save the town from the potential water pollution thanks to the plan to build an aircraft factory. Some time later, he find a doll which turned out to be an android known as Raillord which supposed to control the train, and seeing that Soutetu got an idea to revive the train so that the town didn't need to depend on the factory as income source of the town. By the way the Raillords here are pretty much the train's life, so it's understandable if you asking about the setting if you heard it first. The questionable setting and early controversy aside, Maitetsu here did have a lot of technical talk about train itself.
7. Fureraba ~Friend to Lover~ (VNDB 7.66, Erogamescape 81)
The first time I find this VN was through the opening song, in which I did hear it when I'm binged Astral Air opening. One time I let my Youtube video player to play next video in the play list, and it happen that one of the video was Fureraba opening in which I'd find it addictive because it's sounds melancholic. Anyway after I'd hear the opening I search about the VN, and turned out that it's a VN from Smee in which back then there's no hope to be translated even though I'm quite interested with that. At least until Nekonyan did their debut and announced Fureraba as their first title, in which they'd release it quickly at the same month that they promised (March). As for Fureraba, while the opening sounds melancholic actually the game itself is full of humor so we can say that it got some mismatch lol. The premise is simple though that namely it's about Kyousuke (The MC) who strife get his girlfriend, and that you must accomplish it through the small talks between the heroines. As for the heroines, there's estranged childhood friend, best friend, very rude classmate, and very shy popular senior girl. Overall I did enjoy this VN and if you want more Smee VNs, there'll be more considering that Nekonyan picked Making Lovers.
6. Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road (VNDB 7.72, Erogamescape 78)
I did repeatedly say that it'll be better if we didn't expect Majikoi from this seeing that both premises are already different, but seeing that the tone is the same along with the fact that there's Takahiro who is infamously have big influence in each of his credited works, it's hard to say that it's not like Majikoi here. So perhaps the right word for Tsujidou here is 'Majikoi but no Majikoi', in which I know it's hard to understand but at least I'm certain that Tsujidou here will be full of comedy. Anyway the premise is that our Hiroshi who is far more normal compared to Majikoi's MC did spot the beautiful delinquent at his class Tsujidou Ai (The main heroine) did looking cute while pick a cat, and from there both of Hiroshi and Ai sort of in relationship for a while. At the same time, Ai was dubbed as one of the three strong delinquent in their territory along with two other heroines (Renna and Maki). For more info, this is the second Tsurezure's work that in which Trip didn't like Maki to put it lightly and said that Hiroshi here is worse compared to HatsuKoi's Yuuma. Even so, they still managed to finish Tsujidou and I'm sure that most people who've been looking forward to this would be grateful, so I appriciate their work on this even with the fact that Trip dislike this.
5. Evenicle (VNDB 7.78, Erogamescape 82)
The first attempt from Alicesoft to make new franchise now that they already ended Rance franchise, although both of Evenicle and Rance did share some of it's lore though. As for the VN story itself, it's self contained enough considering the scope was covering of the whole Evenicle world instead of a part of the whole world like Rance, although judging from the sequel we may have many different worlds for Evenicle series setting though. As for the first Evenicle premise, it's in regard of Aster who want to marry both of his childhood friend only to be stopped by the rule that man can only have one wife unless he became the knight. So Aster decide to become the knight in order to be able to marry both, and from there he met several other women who one way or another become his wives while at the same time he face several enemies who based on Seven Deadly Sins. As for the gameplay I think it's like the combination of Final Fantasy 4 with fixed five party members with specified roles, and Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light with battle system that based on 5 BP that will regenerate by one per turn (Also with the Seven Deadly Sins). Overall I did find that Evenicle here is quite good.
4. Island (VNDB 7.80, Erogamescape 82)
Frontwing 15th anniversary project, and instead of ask four writers like back at Grisaia this time they decided to ask Goo to write this, so it's normal if we expect some sci-fi from this considering that Goo did write Himawari who is also known for some sci-fi element. As for the premise, it was in regard of Setsuna who at first didn't remember his name until a girl with the name Rinne call him with that name, and so Setsuna decided to go with it and helping Rinne while at the same time try to understand his own self. We also have the setting that there's a legend that Rinne here is one part of the three families in an isolated island, and that there's a rumored curse that was supposed to be happened because of apparent past mistakes that was done by supposed Setsuna's and Rinne's ancestors. Almost forget that like Tsujidou you can have a romance with the three family daughters, although since this is all age VN obviously we wouldn't have sex scenes (At least Yukari Tamura as Rinne here is more than enough tradeoff lol). Like Grisaia, Frontwing also adapt Island into anime and it should be good if for the conclusive ending only (The anime was kind of rushed though), while at the same time the VN was ended in slightly less conclusive note.
3. Sanoba Witch aka Sabbat of the Witch (VNDB 7.84, Erogamescape 80)
Back at last year I did thought that Sekai will bring more Yuzusoft VNs, and turned out I was wrong because the one who release it first was Nekonyan. Also to elaborate more Senren Banka license was moved from Sekai to Nekonyan, leaving Sekai with Tenshin Ranman and Dracu Riot in which both of those are frozen so any chance for near future release is small. So let me redact my statement by saying that there'll be more Yuzusoft VN in the future because Nekonyan have Senren Banka. Anyway as for Sanoba's premise here it's about of how love that was started from masturbation, and it make sense in the context. Or if you want to be concise it's about our MC Shuuji who can perceive the emotion saw Nene who was masturbate in the library which turned out it's because of her witch contract that cause the horniness, and Nene sign the contract in order to fulfill her wish just like Madoka. While they say witch, I would say that magical girl here is more fitting to Sanoba but then again both of those are almost the same. For more info, this is the first officially localized Yuzusoft VN while at the same time the third (The second if you still wait for Dracu Riot official release) translated Yuzusoft VN, and once again there'll be more in the future thanks to Nekonyan.
2. Flowers -Le Volume sur Été- (VNDB 8.33, Erogamescape 81)
Also known as Flowers Summer and the most interesting JAST release at this year out of four releases to me. As for the premise, it's in regard of Suoh who attend Saint Angraecum (Latin name for orchid) and currently suffer some heartbreak after the event from the previous Flowers (Released back at 2016) happened. Thus our snarky wheel chaired girl Yaegaki Erika took unto herself to recover Suoh and become the MC of this VN, and obviously we'll going to see of how Erika will handle her own problem in which she did find a new friend with the name Takasaki Chidori who'll later become her soulmate (This is shoujo ai VN after all). As for the whole Flowers itself, one may remember Maria-sama ga Miteru (Marimite) anime in which also did have the same setting, and also both of Flowers and Marimite were happened to be the tetralogy. Since this is the second part of tetralogy, obviously there'll be two more in which as of now JAST was working on the third part and hopefully they'll work on the fourth part later, and seeing that it's JAST I would say that it'll took them a long time to even release the third part. That said, the main part of Flowers Summer here is still resolved though so it would be fine if we play this as standalone VN just like Kara no Shoujo duology.
1. 428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de~ aka 428: Shibuya Scramble (VNDB 8.36, Erogamescape 84)
Currently the only VN that got Famitsu score 40/40 in which in term of video game it would be a big accomplishment (Only 25 games as of 2017), and obviously it mean that Shibuya Scramble here would be a subject of hype. Although as for that, I think the hype was pretty much justified seeing that this VN is quite unique because instead of usual anime like drawing, the creator decided to use photograph which mean that it's obviously will cost a lot. As for the premise, it start simple enough with a detective was tasking into resolve the kidnapping case by giving the ransom money to the kidnapper. Of course things turn out to be not as simple as the first look, and so the detective decided to unravel what's really happening behind the kidnapping. Other than the detective, there's four other characters who somehow are involved in the kidnapping case and you'll going to see from the perspectives of all of those characters so essentially we'll going to have five MCs. Other than PS4, Shibuya Scramble was also out for PC so you can play it if you didn't have PS4, although you can only use the keyboard to play it. Almost forget that if you like Canaan anime, you should check Shibuya Scramble here seeing that this VN is the prequel for the anime itself.
As for of the VNs at this year, I would say that with Nekonyan being aggressive looks like it'll be possible that we can get more VNs title. Although of course the situation can be change though because it's still up to the company whether they can release it or not, and we know that the company situation could be easily changed. With this year was almost close, let's look forward to 2019 later with more potential VNs release.
PS - As for the title, I'm just combined Flowers school place setting (Saint Angraecum) with Shibuya Scramble, so we got 'Angraecum Scramble' for the title although of course there's no big scrambling zebra cross in the school in Flowers like back at Shibuya.
I knew that I'd already made this post a year ago here, but seeing that I did make some significant change in here (Not much though) I decided to remake this. So here's my second take on 'Top 10 Best Rated VNs Translated at 2017', and since Pulltop decided to censor Miagete overseas I'd remove it because I decided to not add censored VNs here unless the censorship is very small like Subahibi. Oh and for the rules as usual there's no yaoi, nukige, BL, and MTL-ed VN (ie no Your Diary and Fortissimo back at my 2018 list, which is a shame considering that those two are quite good). Anyway, here's the new list and keep in mind that the scores may be fluctuate in the future (The VNDB scoring based on July 27th, 2023 for the info).
10. Hatsukoi 1/1 (VNDB 7.22, Erogamescape 70)
The first tone work's that was translated by Tsurezure, and it's also the first work for Tsurezure here in regard of VN Translation. The premise was obviously still the same with our MC Yuuma who decided to form cafeteria club with other five girls, and that the cafeteria club was abut to be disbanded because lack of member problem. While the story is sounds simple, unfortunately the writing on Yuuma's character was quite bad so much that it's enraged the player and the staff decided to post an apology video on Niconico (Youtube equivalent on Japan). While their first product ended up getting bad reception, I see that tone work's did really work hard to improve their next work Hoshiori (Currently translated by Tsurezure as well) with the writing and including after stories as well (Without FD). Of course there's some good point in HatsuKoi though namely that we got multiple vocal songs that was sang by different singer (Carried on to both of Hoshiori and Ginharu), and that we can see more than one variation of the background in some places (They remove background variation in Hoshiori and Ginharu though).
9. Wagamama High Spec (VNDB 7.33, Erogamescape 76)
My first impression is still the same though that at first I didn't find the design is very appealing because of the big breast, and moreso if people recognize the same face that the heroines have (I tried to not bothered with it though). Same face and big breast aside, actually this VN is not a big breast nukige even though the design would surely gave you that impression lol. That said, this VN got some comedy and more importantly each girl did have their own development in each of their route, which is something that we wouldn't expect from the design alone and the company past work (Yakimochi Stream, which is dubbed as nukige like VN for having a lot of sex scenes). As for the premise, we have our MC Kouki who is a mangaka that must keep his secrets at school. At least until a certain thing happen when the student council president find out the secrets and decided to rope Kouki into joining student council. After joining, Kouki did find out that the president was secretly his partner at his mangaka work and after that both of them start to work together in student council along with other heroines including Kouki's little sister.
8. Chrono Clock (VNDB 7.35, Erogamescape 71)
The first Purplesoft VN that was localized, and let's just say that the translation choice for this is quite divisive (Either like it, dislike it, or just neutral). The premise is that our rich MC Rei did have a pocket watch from his grandfather, and with the pocket watch he's been able to turn back the time by five minutes. Even though the power is quite powerful, our Rei was mostly use the clock to search his girlfriend by confessing and then turned back the time. One day, he met Miu who was saved by Rei turning back the time after she did fall down and dead, and our Rei did impressed by seeing Miu's determination to confess to his best friend. From there Rei decided to help Miu while at the same time fall in love with her. While at first glance the man heroine is Miu looking from the prologue alone, actually the true main heroine in here is Cro who is the goddess that reside inside Rei's clock and thus the reason of why Rei's clock did have power. Also while I did say prologue here, I felt that it's not the case because we see Miu's development in the prologue and that Miu's route is more like her ending, so we can say that Miu's route here is the prologue (I did call it Miu's arc) and her ending.
7. Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki aka Saku Saku Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossom (VNDB 7.36, Erogamescape 69)
I still remember that this VN was started as the translation project for Shinku TL with some steady progress back at 2014. At first I expected that they'll release the patch quickly, but then suddenly the updates was stopped at QC progress until one day Akerou did announce that he'll go to vacation in order to have some rest. Little we knew that back then Akerou already asked some help from Sekai in order to do the QC (Sell it to Sekai), and then Sekai announced that they help Saku Saku QC (Announced the license) back at AX 2016 in which it shocked me very hard. Even then, Sekai still have delayed the release twice back at August 2017 end (Mismanagement on the release date) before finally manage to release it back at October 2017.
As for Saku Saku here, I guess we can say that technically it's the first work for Nekonyan because Nekonyan was came from Shinku Translation that was headed by Akerou. The premise was that our MC got a bounty of 21,000 yen to anyone else who managed to make him fall in love, because the MC was known as romance consultant and yet he himself is unable to fall in love. The MC's problem is increasing when he meet a shinigami (Tina) who remind him of his childhood when he saw a shinigami, and Tina herself did insist that she's a love fairy (A lousy one though seeing that she use dramatic romance manga as the reference). As for the graphic, it's very beautiful so at least you can enjoy the graphic there if the story is no good for you.
6. Da Capo 3 (VNDB 7.52, Erogamescape 77)
This one VN have some history with our Fuwanovel here, namely that there's first attempt of translating this by our founder Aaeru. Her method is quite divisive though because she'd use VNR which could be amounted as MTL to most of the people. Even so Aaeru keep working on this until she managed to release the prologue patch, only for Mangagamer to C&D her after they got the wind on this. After that she was disappear from the forum and nowadays nobody knew where she is. Anyway, what's done is done and we finally get the release back at 2017 January (By Mangagamer obviously). For the premise, it was set at 2072 after Everlasting Sakura was wither after Da Capo 2 event (The reason of why at 2072 is spoiler though), only to have that tree mysteriously blooming again. So more or less it's just usual Da Capo, and as for play order I would suggest you to play the first side story before going to common route because it's the real prologue for Da Capo 3 (Note that the Prologue and Common Route in Da Capo 3 did have VERY different setting). As for the opening here, there's too much opening for this so I'll just use the first opening in which it's very misleading because it only depict the situation at the Prologue (At least it did have 2D drawing).
5. Dies Irae (VNDB 8.10, Erogamescape 87)
I did read that there's no characters development in this VN, although I think it's more like that the characters are already find something to hold on so there's no need on character development. Then again we shouldn't focused on character development in Dies Irae (Just play charage if you want that), but instead we should focused on the battle which is a lot (Chuunige and all). The premise is very cliche with some Germany soldiers were did some ritual to destroy the world and disappeared back at WW2, and somehow reappeared in 2006. The only one who can fight the soldiers is Ren (The MC) who can kill the soldiers that normally impossible to kill with his mysterious power. Another thing to note is the prose, in which it's very roundabout and could be boring for some people, while at the same time we can say that the prose did make the reader more immersive in read Dies Irae. We also have the gods in Dies Irae, in which the gods themselves like to talk in cryptic while at the same time are pretty charismatic. I'll post the all age version opening, because all age version is the best one with side stories available and most people would prefer it over 18+ version (I also recommend that you should play all age version instead of 18+ version here, even though the latter did have 'passionate Hitomi Nabatame-voiced love-making' scene).
4. Seabed (VNDB 8.14, Erogamescape 79)
As for the scoring, since the number of votes was still very few this VN will be the most fluctuative one (At 134 votes on 2019/01/28). As for the premise, it was very simple in which we got a woman (Sachiko) who has her lover disappear and from there she'll try to recover from the heartbreak that caused by the disappearance by the help of her childhood friend (Narasaki) who is also a psychiatrist. By the way Sachiko's lover (Takako) here was the woman as well, so we'll gonna get some yuri VN from the first glance although there'll be no explicit sex scenes though seeing that it's all age VN. Seeing that Sachiko seek some psychiatrist, there'll be some talk in regard of psychology in which it may confusing for some people out there. From there we'll going to see what's going on in Seabed through three POV (Sachiko, Takako, and Narasaki). The VN itself is a doujin one and didn't have voice, although seeing that we have example the good doujin VN that didn't have voice (ie Umineko and Fata Morgana before being ported to the consoles) I would say that you should try Seabed here to see it by yourself, and if anything at least the art is better than Umineko default art.
3. Chaos Child (VNDB 8.33, Erogamescape 85)
At first it's for console only (At PS4 and PSV), and then we have Committee of Zero released the PC patch that imported the translation into PC version along with Steam release of this, so we can play Chaos Child at PC if you didn't have the consoles. Anyway, the premise was we have another serial murder in Shibuya which eerily resembled the one back at Chaos Head by looking at the date, which of course quite graphic considering that in the past Nitroplus was involved with Chaos Head. From there, we have our MC Takuru who took abnormal interest to the case and then he decided to investigate the murder cases while at the same time being frightened, and hopefully would be able to calm down some anxiety in Shibuya. From what I read apparently the girls route was not quite satisfying (At least the girls good as eye candy lol), so it could be interpreted that the writing was more focused on the main story. If anything, we can learn the additional contents from the girls route. Oh, and actually this is more in line with Steins Gate instead of original Chaos Head, simply because both of Steins Gate and Chaos Child did have routes (Original Chaos Head is linear VN, and they remake it as NoaH with the addition of the routes). As for the opening, I'll post PS4 version below because personally I prefer PS4 version opening (Singularity).
2. Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen aka Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (VNDB 8.33, Erogamescape 82)
The first part of Utawarerumono sequel duology, in that it tell the story several years after first Utawarerumono. While at first it mean that you'll follow the older casts, actually in here you'll follow the new casts and the old casts here only have role as the cameo (Even though the role that the cameos have is not exactly small). So in order to enjoy this VN you better adapt with the new characters here, because we'll following them for the whole VN. As for the premise, we have our amnesiac man who find himself under treatment of a girl who capable in medicine. After the girl find out that the man did forget his name, the girl decided to call the man as Haku and the girl introduce herself as Kuon. From there both of Haku and Kuon will go to imperial city in order to find the job for Haku even though Haku just want to laze around, and from there the duo will eventually entangled in wars like back at first Utawarerumono. For more info the setting here is that the people except Haku have animal ears, and that Utawarerumono here is gameplay VN (SRPG) with the gameplay for the sequel here is vastly improved compared to the prequel. The most important thing in here is that it's only the first part of duology, so naturally the ending in here is a cliffhanger one and the second part (Futari no Hakuoro aka Mask of Truth) will pick up from the ending.
1. Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~ aka Wonderful Everyday ~Diskontinuierliches Dasein~ (VNDB 8.68, Erogamescape 86)
We already knew that this VN did suffered translation hell back at TLWiki since back at 2012, in which back then there's almost no hope of this being released before finally saw some progress back at 2015. Long story short, the awaited release was never happened until Frontwing suddenly announced this back at February 2017. I would say that they did the good job for localized this, even with the fact that the overseas release was censored although compared to Pulltop's overseas release it's still far more better though because only the picture that was censored (And disturbing at that for some people). As for the premise, it was in regard of the world which about to face the apocalypse at July 20th 2012 (Even though the in-game year should be at 2009), and from there we can see the events from several POV in order to get the full picture. While this VN was lauded as the best VN because it could change people's life, I would say that there's some flaw inside Subahibi here but even so I would say that you should try it anyway to seeing that by yourself. As for the subtitle, just like French at Grisaia Frontwing also add another language for the subtitle and this time it's Germany.
That's all for the remake of my list here, and I hope you enjoyed this even though once again my list was mostly still the same as Conjueror's.
PS - As for the title, once again I'd just combine Chaos Child (Chaotic) with Subahibi (Everyday), so we got 'Chaotic Everyday' here as the title. The v2 mean that this is my second version of my top ten list for 2017 even though I'm belated a year to make this.
Well since I'd already made two of my top 10 list based on Conjueror's video, might as well goes with the third as well which is based on the video that talk about best rated translated VNs at 2015 - therefore the scoring was already different compared to the video because it was fluctuated. As for the rules, it's still the same though with the most obvious one there will be not yaoi or otome. Also I didn't want to add euphoria here because the sex content was too hardcore, although I might consider that for another list. For VNDB score, I'll list that based on the votes at July 26th 2023. Beware of the spoiler when you playing the opening here, and I'll tell the meaning of the title at PS.
10. Noble Works (VNDB 7.31, Erogamescape 78)
Also known as Noodle Works back when it was released, although it's obviously meme title lol. This VN was the first VN that break Yuzusoft curse in which in the past there's no known complete translation for the VN from the company, and in turn prove us that it's possible for us to have Yuzusoft VN to be fully translated (They have partnership with Sekai as of now, so there'll be more in the future). The premise was a poor MC with many capabilities met a man who resemble him very much and an ill boy as well, so the MC decided to became the man body double and turn out that the man was a son from a very rich conglomerate. Of course since he spent the time as the very rich boy, he attends the high class school and from there he tried to enjoy his new school life while make sure that his secret as the body double remained secret. I like that Yuzusoft here did have some high production value, especially in regard of the cover songs for the heroines as the promotion in which they keep that tradition for their future VNs.
9. Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate (VNDB 7.36, Erogamescape 70)
This VN was see very long time of translation since back at 2012, before finally have a sudden release back at 2015. For the premise, it's about the MC and his childhood friend (A female by the way) club which about to be abolished because the club didn't contributed to the school at all, and of course they couldn't accept that. The only solution was to become the student council president, and it's up to MC for becoming one. Since the main focus was the election, there will be some school politic talk so it might be interesting if you like politic. Other thing to note is that the aforementioned childhood friend (Chisato) route was locked first before you could play all of other routes, which seeing that some of the people dislike Chisato at the other girls route it could be interpreted that the writers may didn't have confidence that her route will be be played if the player able to chose any route to play first, so they decided forced the player to play her route first - a decision that cause some divisive opinion for easy word. As for the art, it was quite unique compared to many other VN out there.
8. Princess Evangile (VNDB 7.36, Erogamescape 69)
Don't be surprised by the Erogamescape score, because sometimes the taste of the VN will be differ between overseas and Japan. I knew that there's some issue in regard of Erogamescape rating, but perhaps Japanese people didn't like Evangile as much as in overseas. As for the premise, once again it's in regard of poor MC who have many capability entering the high class school, only that the school is former Catholic all girl school and the MC was first male student when the school was about to be reformed into mixed school. Of course there would be many discrimination that the MC will be faced, so it's up to him to face the discrimination and hope that he could endure all of it. There's also the matter of infamous headmistress, in which when I saw the writer past work I think it could be attributed to his portrayal of one of the mom back at Suika, although headmistress herself was far saner than the mom though (Hint: The mom at Suika was very crazy). What I could say in regard of this is that back at 2015 I'm surprised that Shimotsuki Haruka sang the opening, although if I see the opening right now maybe it's not surprising anymore.
7. Ourai no Gahkthun ~What a Shining Brave~ aka Gahkthun the Golden Lightning -What a Radiant Brave- (VNDB 7.47, Erogamescape 81)
The first Sakurai Hikaru Steampunk series to be officially translated, and it's supposed to be hard to translated because her works supposed to have some poetic style. Not that it matter though because more or less we already got three of Steampunk VNs translated (Inganock and Sharnoth was arguably badly translated though), and the fourth work (Sona-Nyl) was in translation right now. As for the premise, our female MC (Neon) was live poorly at the university and she must overworked every time so much she was suffer because of that. To add more her problem it happened that she saw some supernatural battle and about to be silenced, only to be rescued by some handsome man who somehow control a giant robot. One day after that, turn out that the handsome man was Nikola Tesla (The male MC) which is at 72 years old as of the time of the game, and Neon became Tesla's maid because she was bought by Tesla for 30 silver coins. For more info, the VN have usual Steampunk VN style in which Tesla gonna have 'battle of the chapter' format for each chapter, so it might be repetitive for some people. Oh, and as for the name it was quite hard to type to me lol.
6. Bunny Black (VNDB 7.53, Erogamescape 73)
This VN MC was pretty much an expy of Rance, although by the 2nd VN he was more or less different though because he managed to have good relationship with the woman that he was sexed with. As for the premise, we have our Rance expy MC (Darx) was about to defeat the demon king only to be defeated by the demon king. Took an interest to Darx, she (The demon king is a woman by the way) recruit Darx to became one of her minion. From there, Darx will do many grunts job at first before finally have rise in regard of the rank, and of course fighting the threat that came to the demon king. The VN itself the gameplay VN, and in here you could make the party although you can't control their action though just like Persona 3 - at least they sort of fix the problem in the sequel. What I could say more is that at the beginning it'll be quite hard and you could die if you careless, at least until the mid game in which it became pretty easy.
5. Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet (VNDB 7.60, Erogamescape 80)
The premise of eden was the Earth was about to approach it's destruction because of the calamity that caused by the mysterious red star, and most of Earth population were already migrated to the space leaving handful people stay on the Earth. Our MC here was a capable young soldier (Ryou) who tasked to protect a female artificial human (Sion), who supposed to have very high intelligent. Said artificial human was help the migration to the space, and now that Sion already finished her job she was waiting until Earth's destruction. Seeing that Sion was have an isolated life and want to be free in the last days of Earth, our Ryou decided to help Sion to reach her freedom. As expected from minori the animation was very good, moreso if we looking at the opening which have some good effects. If we asked whether there will be an happy end for this, unfortunately there's none because the Earth was about to approach it's destruction so more or less it's an utsuge. Forget to say that the demo was translated by No Name Loser before they joining Mangagamer.
4. Rose Guns Days (VNDB 8.15, Erogamescape 81)
While this is another Ryukishi07 work, it won't have many mysterious murders like his previous work (Higurashi and Umineko, or When They Cry for both series) and also it won't be another eight parts of kinetic VN. Instead Rose Guns Days (RGD) itself is just four parts of kinetic VN which set up in an alternative world, with Japanese was divided into the part that was a part of Chinese and a part of American with Japanese people became the minority in their own land, so we'll gonna have to see the struggle of Japanese people - and yes the land of Japan still didn't belong to Japanese themselves even at the present because it was stated at the prologue that one part of Japanese is a part of Chinese. The story was begin back at modern time (Present time) in the prologue, before flashed back to 1947 to 1950 when most of the story take place of.
The main casts are work in a brothel so more or less it could be said that it have underworld setting, in which the story itself could be quite dark and grim for another reason (There'll be some death here as well, only not as often as When They Cry series). Other than that, I admit that RGD sprite was improved compared to When They Cry, although it could be argued that it was because it have multiple actress to draw the characters though. There's still no voice though, so too bad if one want to play it with voice - although it's no problem to me though (I just wonder if Yukari Tamura would voiced Stella though because she's resembled both of Furude Rika of Higurashi and Bernkastel of Umineko). As a bonus, I'll add the second opening here although beware of the spoiler though, especially because it was played at the second half of the last part of RGD.
3. Maji de Watashi Koi Shinasai (VNDB 8.36, Erogamescape 82)
The premise was very simple, with MC was already be one of seven people group since his childhood and that's about to be change because the group gonna accept two more female into the group. But the main strength of Majikoi was the comedy, which could be quite absurd so much that you're not gonna care about the logic here and just laughing. It also have martial arts setting as well, although it didn't matter anyway since one of the main cast have Story Breaker Power, and therefore we could ignore that setting mostly. For a history in regard of this, it was translated by Takajun (ie Yandere Translations) first before he disappeared back at 2013 after he work at out of five girls route with the fifth route (Miyako's) was at 85% translated. After that, it was picked by one of the user here and from there we saw the progress of Majikoi going steadily, and finally it was released as fully translated patch at March 2015. It'll be officially localized by JAST as well, but seeing that it's JAST and we already have complete translation I could say that JAST announcement in regard of this was pretty much redundant to me. Enjoy the opening below, which is fully animated although there's no special effect like Eden opening though.
2. Kara no Shoujo 2 (VNDB 8.44, Erogamescape 85)
Unlike Majikoi in which the tone was mostly lighthearted, this VN did have exactly the opposite in regard of the tone - grim and depressing. The beginning was already grim enough with our MC Reiji who work as detective was still couldn't move on from his traumatic event back at first Kara no Shoujo, which is already depressing enough. Here he must have another murder case to contend, this time with another MC Masaki who have some connection with the murder. As for the murder, it's also rumored to have some curse from Masaki's hometown so obviously things not going to be easy for our Reiji. From there, both of Masaki and Reiji work together in order to unfold the murder case, and to find out the truth behind the curse. As for the ending unfortunately it's still quite dark especially at the true end (After all, this VN was called as utsuge for a very good reason), and what's more it's obviously a sequel hook because Innocent Grey was working on Kara no Shoujo 3, so unfortunately Reiji still didn't get the satisfying conclusion. That said, at least the conclusion for Masaki was satisfying enough. Oh, and the demo that was provided was did have different story compared to the main VN, so if possible you should play the demo as well because it was sort of served as the prologue and introduction.
1. Clannad (VNDB 8.67, Erogamescape 87)
The release year for this quite complicated because we already have this translated at 2012, although it listed as partial release though. We also have Sekai here did release Clannad at 2015 here, and unlike their several releases back then I think it's their best release seeing that the available PC patch did have several problems. For the premise we have Tomoya who have a lot of daddy issue thanks to the abuse, and that he always skip the school. One day in April, Tomoya met with a girl on the way to the school and some time after that the girl introduce herself as Nagisa. From there Tomoya find himself being interested with her, and started to enjoy his school life more. It should also be noted that this is the first KEY VN that was intended as all age VN in the first place, and thus there's no need to make some fuss in regard of the censorship (Because there is none of that). Also Clannad here is one of the most well known KEY VN thanks to the anime adaptation which widely acclaimed as good adaptation, and that is well known as one of the saddest anime although of course it's still not as sad as AIR though.
That's all for my list here, and hope you'll enjoy this. As for my opinion, 2015 was the year when we started to get some interesting VNs from the official company, especially when Sekai announced some interesting VN like Root Double - same goes with Mangagamer in regard of Tokyo Babel. Although in exchange of that, the number of fan translation was goes down compared to back at 2015 to nowadays - which could be argued as most of fan translator already going official. Just my opinion here.
PS - As for the title, since we have Majikoi which have the anime title as 'Majikoi: Oh Samurai Girls' and Kara no Shoujo 2 as the two best VNs of 2015, I decided to add 'Samurai' to 'Kara no Shoujo' so we have 'Samurai no Shoujo'.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review, and because we have a fan finally working on 18+ patch for Lovekami trilogy along with we have Venus Blood Ragnarok translation announcement with it has the gameplay corrupting the heroine, I made the parody for one of Lovekami VN, Healing Harem, by changing 'Healing' into 'Corrupted'. so we have 'LoveKami -Corrupted Harem-' as the title. As for this week, let's just say that it's below average one bordering plain, but at least Shiravune show some activity even though it's just to announce their release plan. Let's see what I can write in regard of this week.
Shiravune announced they'll release Kiss kara Hajimeru Egoism (English name Ego's Spark) on February 20th later, with the VN itself is a short single robot heroine VN. If anything else, at least we have the artist who drew Study Steady design the heroine and drew the sex scene, so you can get it for the art alone. We also have Shiravune confirmed they didn't have plan to release Holy Slave Academy on 30th later, with them revert the release estimation to Q1 2024 (ie March 31st at the latest). Lastly, Shiravune did tease a new announcement, although I should talk about it later.
If you still hesitate to play Aojashin because some people make fuss in regard of the last remaining censorship, you didn't need to worry because the restoration team released the patch to restore the removed content back in last Christmas, so you can apply the patch if you want to play Aojashin like in the original Japanese. Of course, you can still play Aojashin without that last bit of restored contents, but at least the choice is there if you're still wary about it. Speaking of restoration, someone did work hard to add the sex scenes in Lovekami trilogy, which I did call it as Pulltop's answer to Winged Cloud's Sakura series (The link to the project page). It should be noted that the sex scenes are MTL-ed in case you want to see the sex scenes in Lovekami, so keep that in mind before trying the patch.
There are some news on both Yosuga no Sora and Haruka no Sora. For the info, Yosuga no Sora is at 74% TLC-ed along with regressed to 59% edited (Might be because the team decided to do a bit reworking on it) and Haruka na Sora is at 84% translated along with regressed to 70% TLC-ed (Might be because the team decided to separated translation and TLC progress). For the rest of fan translation, we have Shin Koihime Musou is at 69% edited, ChuSingura is at 37.60% translated, Akagoei 3 is at 87.26% translated along with 18.24% edited, and Nagi no Koi is at 60% translated along with 40% edited and the assets was halfway worked on. Lastly, Rattan Man has working on another VN from Black Lilith, Taima Seikou Alice, and currently it's been at 10% translated.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and sorry for being short here. See you next week.
Welcome to this week VNTS Review. Since we have Tristia released with the female MC Nanoca along with the gameplay is like older Atelier game (Pre-Iris game one), I figure that I should just call it as 'Atelier Nanoca' in which it's the title for this week VNTS Review. For this week, we have two (Or rather three) releases with two of those are Tristia new VNs. Other than the releases, we also have big update for Eustia in that it's been fully programmed, and also the announcement for Akai Ito and Aoishiro exact release date. Overall this week is an above average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Shiravune released Nope Nope Nope Nurses, and if I may say my reaction in a very blunt manner then I should say it as nope nope nope lol. Seriously speaking though, it's the sequel of the first femdom nurse nukige in that from what I see it's quite short. From what I see, it add four more sadistic nurses that will give the MC more painful experiences, especially in regard of sex. That said, you can get the VN if you want to see more femdom nurse (If anything else at least the character design for the nurses are still good) and have fun.
The biggest update for fan translation is that we finally have Eustia was fully in programming, which mean it might be possible to see June's release after all. That said , there's still some work left to be done, namely that the translator will do some last checkup on the script files of the last chapter before finally allowed the it to be QC-ed. Granted that I would prefer him to allow the script files to be QC directly, but considering that we have Mizuha's patch that has a lot of mistakes because it didn't QA-ed yet and become controversial, it would be better to be safe than sorry (Well both options are obviously have pro and con). In any case, it's good to see Eustia finally reach the milestone, and for the info the first three chapters are already QC-ed, so all that left is to do QC run for the last two chapters.
For the rest of fan translation updates, we have Chronos was fully edited, the fifth Drama CD for White Album 2 Mini fandisc was translated (You can view the video of the drama CD here), ChuSingura is at 18.27% translated, and H2O is at 95.5% translated with Maki's route was fully translated and Otoha's route is at 59.9% translated. We also have the updates from Yosuga no Sora translation team, in that we have Yosuga no Sora is at 68% TLC-ed along with 35% edited, and there's also Haruka na Sora update in that Kozue's route is at 20% translated. We also have new project with the goal to translate Koiyasumi, and it's more or less like a single heroine nukige in which we'll going to have a MC who is an university student going back to his old home in the countryside with him living together with his female childhood friends. For the progress, currently Koiyasumi is at 21.11% translated.
Recently Success announced the exact date for Aoishiro and Akai Ito duology HD Remake, and said date will be on May 25th later with the pre-order will be opened on February 1st. For the info, it's only for the Switch version so no Steam version until further notice. Speaking of announced the exact release date, just today Nekonyan announced that they'll release Mirai Radio on February 17th later so you can note the date if you've been looking forward to it. Lastly we have Trisitia released, and it's divided into two releases (Legacy and Restore). Once again Tristia is about our female MC Nanoca who is tasked to restore the ruined town in place of her legendary grandfather, although obviously it won't be easy for her, doubly so with a lot of people doubt her capabilities. Even so, she won't give up on her task and she will do her best to see her job finished successfully. Go get Trisita if you've been waiting for it since Kogado announced the English version of it, and have fun.
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week VNTS Review, and happy Chinese New Year. See you next week.
Visual Novel Translation Status (12/11/2023)
Because we have Amazing Grace exact release date announced while we also have Shuuen no Virche released, I make a parody of Detective Conan 12th movie, Full Score of Fear, by changing 'Fear' into 'Salvation' from Shueen no Virche full title (Shuuen no Virche -ErroR:salvation-), so we have 'Full Score of Salvation' as the title. Oh yes, I made Conan 12th movie parody because the Amazing Grace song was prominently featured in there. From what I see this week, we have several number exact release date announcement along with several releases, although ironically enough I did find that the release date announcements are more interesting. Overall this week is a slightly above average one, and let's see what I can write in regard of it.
Mangagamer released Higurashi Hou+, in which it's obviously the expansion pack of the original Higurashi outside Console Arcs. As for which arcs that are featured, those are Outbreak (The alternative situation where Hinamizwa was fully quarantined), Kamikashimashi (The sequel of Outbreak), Hinamizawa Bus Stop (The pilot version of Higurashi), and Mehagashi (Fan service chapter that originally released as the bonus of infamous Gou Blue-Ray collection). Honestly speaking all of those are more or less extra materials, although feel free to get Higurashi Hou+ if you want more Higurashi and have fun. Mangagamer also announce their future release, and this time it's Sona-Nyl in that it's been seven years since Mangagamer announced it on Otakon 2016. In case you've been waiting for seven years to play it in English, you can wait until December 7th later because Mangagamer will release it at that date.
Idea Factory is about to release Symphaty Kiss on February 27th next year, and Aksys also do the same with Death Mark 2 with said release date is on February 15th. We also have Aksys relese their VN, with the VN is the aforementioned Shuuen no Virche. Said VN is about the female MC who live in the cursed land that has limited the age expectancy to only exactly at 23 years old, so mankind tried their best to prolong their live through Memory Download, which consist of the human transfer their memories to the new body after their old bodies reach 23 years old and dying. The female MC herself is infamous with her calling as Grim Reaper with anyone who interact with her will encounter bad luck, although by some luck she manage to have romance with one of the heroes. Go get Shuuen no Virche if you want to play dark otome VN and have Switch, and also if you've been interested with it.
Aniplex planned to release Hira Hira Hihiru on three days later (17th), so you can note the date if you're interested with it. Sekai also has an update, and said update is in regard of Nekonin Spin with them just starting the translation work on it. For fan translation updates, we have ChuSingura is at 33.39% translated, Tsuma Netori is at 90% translated, and Akagoei 3 is at 65.39% translated.
Lastly, we have several updates from Shiravune with them did manage to release Kuroinu 2 on time, and once again it's more or less the same with Kuroinu 1 except with different MC. That said, Kuroinu 2 MC (Derek) certainly will working hard to living up the reputation of Kuroinu 1 MC, Vult, to the dismay of nine heroines because it'll be involving Derek raping all of the heroines using any way that he could. Go get Kuroinu 2 if you're in the mood of playing dark nukige with war story, and have fun. Shiravune also has announced the exact release date for two of their VN, with them finally have the release date for Mamiya Mami with said date is on December 1st, and last but not the least we have the exact release date for Amazing Grace with it will be a week after Mamiya Mami release date (December 8th).
That's all for what I can write in regard of this week, and I know that I miss some updates so I'll talk about those missing updates on my next VNTS Review. See you next week.
