Fred the Barber

Sol Press has released four things. Get your facts straight before you predict doom and gloom. From everything I can see, things are going fine there, and they've learned a lot from the various slowdowns and setbacks (not the least of which was the months-long Steam adult content meltdown which hit basically everybody in the industry).

They haven't said anything about a fandisc release yet. I have no knowledge whatsoever, but mixed opinions on whether they'll do it. On the one hand, I imagine this game did well for them and expect the fandisc would too, so it seems only logical that they'd do it. On the other hand, I don't recall SP ever releasing a fandisc before, unless you count the little Grisaia things, which are obviously exceptional (I could be wrong and just unaware of things they've released, though?). Notably, they didn't (yet) do the fandisc for WagaHigh, which I imagine also did well.

I'll probably always associate snow with Kanon. It helps that I both first watched the anime in winter, and then first played the game the following winter, but of all the seasonal themes I've seen in VNs, that one sticks with me the most.

Yeah, I honestly don't know why they published that update, as I don't think these names are any more final than the previous ones. All it did was elicit a firestorm of feedback from "critics" who don't know what they're talking about. I wouldn't worry too much about it or think too hard about it. The translator on the project knows what he's doing; let the man work.

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

People need to be more hyped up about Nukitashi in here, seriously. I flipped my shit when they told me about the announcement. Also, I hope all my fellow degenerates are looking forward to Onii-Kiss. I'm editing it.

Just to correct a slight (and common) misunderstanding: Steiner did work on Steins;Gate, but the lion's share of the translation was done by Blick Winkel. Also, the JAST release is very heavily edited versus the fan TL, to its benefit, which is in my experience the norm for when fan TLs get picked up for official release. The quality invariably rises because the people involved are more committed to it, and because more resources become available to the project, particularly on the QC and programming side, and often on the editing side. You certainly do see cases where the resulting official release of an acquired fan TL is bad... and in those cases, I tend to think the fan TL itself would likely have been even worse, though perhaps there are exceptions, where the project management of the official release is bungled or where certain licensing restrictions imposed by the Japanese license-holder tie the hands of the people responsible for the official release.

Just another vote for "I don't really notice when backgrounds are empty, but I really notice and appreciate when they're populated". Muv-Luv and Clannad both come to mind as having a lot of characters in the background art in the school shots in particular, and they breathe a lot of life into those backgrounds.

Truly spoken as someone who has no idea how grueling a process it is to translate something.

TBH, I don't find the "nukige" and "moege" distinctions very useful nowadays... moege all seem to have so many H scenes that the distinction is kind of lost on me, unless it's purely one of attitude towards sex, rather than sheer quantity/density of sex.

Yeah, I honestly couldn't deal with MML. I played through the common route and a tiny bit of a character route, and it just feels like nothing ever happens, so I dropped it.

I mean, that's a bunch of content at the beginning of the game with a pretty crappy enough translation that they had to replace the person doing it with someone good. I'm looking forward to this game, and I'm going to be annoyed if the intro, UI, etc., are all badly translated.

I'll be buying both on release, but I'll probably be playing KoiKuma first, for the same lone reason that other people have cited why you might pick it. Assuming your decision is motivated by literally anything beyond fap material, among these two, you're probably better off with Sanoba. Also, RIP LocaLove.

I think they managed to tap into the Japanese audience for a big chunk of the funding, with the promise of new content.

I caught a nasty cold this last weekend and all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, so I binge-watched Princess Principal over two days. Man, was that ever a good decision. First of all, the setting and themes were right up my alley: steampunk, sci-fi, turn-of-the-century, alternate history version of England, spies... Good shit! It was a relief to find that there was hardly any boring school stuff (apparently "principal" meant something else...), and instead the episodes were generally filled with action, plot, and character development. The characters were uniformly excellent, and the plot was super compelling! I thought I saw the twist coming, but how wrong I was. The dash of sci-fi helped a lot of the action scenes feel unique and fun, but even when it wasn't using that angle, the action scenes delivered, over, and over. The show even had good subs (official, by Sentai)! I only have one small complaint, which was that the ending wasn't much of a resolution. I'm glad there's a second season of sorts coming up (five movies, I think?), both because I loved the show and want more of it, and because I'm hoping for a more complete resolution. Here's hoping! For my next show, I just started on Made in Abyss, yet another thing I promised a friend I'd watch several months ago. It's pretty cool! The setting is really engaging, and the setup is interesting. I'm only one episode in, so I've just scratched the surface, but I like what I've seen so far and am looking forward to more. That said, I'm already unimpressed with the (again, official, from Sentai) subs. They're not bad per se, but the tone of the subs often really clashes with the tone of the spoken line (frightened one- or two-word exclamations turn into long complete sentences, for example), and there's no clear attempt at characterization in the subs; all the people kinda sound the same, despite large age gaps.