Yuri Hunter

Welcome to my official video blog thread! Everything and anything will be located here should you ever need to find it, with links posted below for your viewing pleasure. If you have any questions about how the blog works or want to see anything showcased, please let me know!
 
Thanks for watching!
 
Official Japanese Video Blog YouTube Channel Playlist

https://vndb.org/v17102
 
Purported as a "true sequel", this is going to be the first new canon entry to the series since the original. Hardly anything is known about it, other than it taking place in the beta world line. I can't really imagine how that will work since S;G's true ending ended on a different world line. What do you guys think about all this?

I gave this advice a number of times in private to people who said to me, "I know some Japanese, and I want to try being a translator.  Is there anything I should know?"
 
The truth is that I could go on for hours or days on all the things that would prevent a new translator from stepping on the same landmines I and others like me did back in the day... but a lot of that is basically human-relations advice for dealing with prima-donnas.
 
Instead, I'm just going to give a few pieces of simple advice.
 
1.  Master particle and ending usage, no matter what.  Even if you forget half of the rest of the grammar, understanding how particle and ending usage alters the flow of a sentence can allow you to adapt.  (this is a basic requirement not a luxury, as some of the 'translators' I've worked with have assumed)
2.  With fantling VNs, JParser is your best friend.  I only say this for those who can already play VNs on their own with 80-100% understanding just by glancing at the suggested furigana and automatically rephrasing it into a proper Japanese sentence (JParser makes suggestions, but they are just that... suggestions). 
3.  Actual Japanese-English translation tools are worthless for anything other than single words that use common-use kanji.  If you get a writer/author who prefers more unusual kanji, don't even attempt to use them for that.
4.  Play the VN, watch the anime (even if it is just the episode you are working on), read the manga/light novel before you decide to translate it. You'll be surprised at how much info sticks to the back of your mind just by experiencing the material without the handicap of having to translate it.
5.  Love and passion solve a lot of things, but not everything.  Deliberately slow down your translation and take brief breaks (one or two days with VNs, an hour or so with anime) if it feels like you are about to fry.  Don't let those breaks extend beyond that, though.  If you let yourself burn out, there is a good chance you won't start again.
6a.  If you can, attach yourself at the hip to an active and experienced mentor translator.  Get him to tlc scenes that you have translated (not all of them, just the ones that gave you trouble) and give you detailed translation-check reports so you can see how and why you went wrong.  You can learn more from a good translation-checker's tlc report than a month in class.
6b.  Make sure you completely translate any scenes you send to a mentor.  This is simply to reduce the stress levels of your mentor and keep him/her from abandoning you.  Most people who get enough experience to effectively teach others about translation aren't going to have any patience whatsoever for half-assed work.
7.  Avoid anything that even vaguely resembles a difficult project for your first one.  Oddly, for anime, medieval fantasy is probably the easiest genre to translate from the start.  However, with VNs, choose something with easy language for your first project (a very short moege, maybe).
 
I'll let other people expound on the people-issues of translation projects, since most people aren't as cynical as me about them.  Like I said, I could list pitfall after pitfall of dealing with translation projects, but you'd still step on the same landmines anyway.  Good luck, new translators.

As someone who's recently started a legitimate Translation Project, I've been wanting to kind of look back on my progress and see how I improved ever since I started learning Japanese to where I am now, how I plan on evolving, etc. and hopefully with it also help other people who might be in the same situation I was or just people in general who are interested in translating visual novels.
 
First and foremost: This is my opinion and my opinion only. This is not meant to be a bible for you to religiously follow. I'm not a professional, nor do I claim to be one. This is simply me attempting to give some form of meaningful advice and input from my own experiences, as in, how things worked out best for me. So please, don't burn me at the stake if you disagree with something, although do feel free to give productive comments, this is meant to be helpful for everyone after all.
 

 
So you want to translate a visual novel?

 
Below i'm going to list the 3 most important steps in starting a translation project, and the ones I use as guidelines. 
Keep in mind you can do whatever you want, this is simply my advice on how to try and make your project have the highest success rate.
 
Step 1
First off there's one important factor to take into account. This is the most crucial part of translating anything and you need to drill it into your brain as soon as possible.
Answer this question: Do you like the visual novel you want to translate?
 
Now I know this sounds generic as hell, but you have to understand this: Translating something you're not sure you're going to enjoy is like playing russian roulette. It's like trying to make a cake and not being sure if you're adding salt or sugar.
 
And I know some people already know this, but they still strongly believe they'll enjoy the visual novel despite never having played through it (particularly prevalent with visual novels that have anime counterparts). This is terrible practice.
 
Why you ask?
First let's assume the worst case scenario: You end up translating it and find out you don't really like it. You'll end up demotivated and 99% of the time you'll drop the project.
Now let's assume you're translating it and end up enjoying it: The fact that you have not played through it and you're giving the raw scripts a look before knowing the whole context, how the VN feels, and sometimes even how the characters are speaking (tones and stuff), can be a huge factor in mistranslating or misinterpreting words/sentences, which will lead to inaccurate translations.
And lastly: You might be translating the scripts and realising it's kind of boring, but maybe if you had played the game beforehand you would have known it picked up the pace at some point and was actually fun.
 
Essentially speaking: Not knowing wether you like a VN and translating it is a huge gamble that more often than not has bad results.
 
My personal experience:
I liked the anime Sakurasou quite a bit and knew it had a visual novel counterpart. 
What did I do? I immediately went and got the scripts, thinking maybe I'd tackle it as a translation project.
Before taking a serious look at the scripts, I actually ended up and grabbing the game. Well guess what? I actually didn't have much fun with the game and I'm still thankful I didn't end up mindlessly attempting to translate it.
 
And a more positive example to showcase why it's so important to like the visual novel you're translating:
My translation project for Lilium x Triangle was only started after i cleared the entire game. After I had read through every single line and understood everything.
And you know what? I'm having a blast translating the scripts, because it brings me back the feelings I had when I read the game, it reminds me of how much I enjoyed it, and it makes translating it fun instead of a drag.
 
And this is why, and I know some disagree with me on this, I  don't believe random people that have never tried the game should try to start translation projects.
 
Step 2
Now I assume you have played and enjoyed the visual novel you want to translate. Now comes the second crucial part: know your own skills.
 
This one's more obvious but, you have to know exactly how can you start a translation project for a visual novel. How are you going to accomplish what you want?
 
First off, there's two skills you need to have in your team in order for your project to have any chance of succeeding: Translation and Hacking.
 
Without these two, your project will never take off or finish.
 
And this is where I might have a bit of an unpopular opinion but, I really don't have much faith in translation projects that are not started by the translators themselves. But I can give this a bit of a slack depending on certain circumstances detailed below.
 
If you're a translator
Great! You have the best chance of succeeding if you, as a translator, are the one who started the project. 
Assuming you've followed step 1, here's my personal advice if you're a translator:
 
1. How good is your Japanese/How difficult is the visual novel to read? (Obvious question is obvious).  
You need to know your own skills before attempting to translate anything.
Like I mentioned in step 1, you need to read the visual novel you're translating first and foremost. Make sure you understand a bare minimum of 90% of it (ideally, higher) so you know you are capable of even thinking about translating it.
 
Clephas made a really helpful guide for beginner translators that I really recommend you checkout beforehand: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/7692-advice-for-a-beginning-translator/
 
2. Never use machine translators
I'm not afraid to admit I've been here, and let me tell you right now: This does not work.
Attempting to interpret machine translations, even if you believe the translator you're using is accurate, even if you're just looking at the romanji/furigana and you feel like you grasped it, it will more than 80% of the time result in inaccurate translations/meanings.
 
The first game I ever attempted to translate was a nukige which I thought I'd like given the CGs.
And to be fair, I really did like it once I legitimately read it (which was a while back after I improved my own skills to be able to comprehend Japanese better) but when I attempted to translate it, I resorted to machine translations, and boy was it hell. As soon as a sentence that wasn't a couple words long appeard, it was simply impossible to make anything meaningful out of it.
 
Even if you believe you have a really good editor, this is still not a viable way to translate anything.
 
3. Know your own pace.
Knowing how fast you translate is super important. This helps you know how long you will likely take to translate the visual novel and also it will let you put everything into prespective and evaluate wether or not this is a project you want to sink time in.
 
If you're a beginner, your pace is likely not fast, and attempting to translate really long projects will likely result in you burning out halfway through it.
 
4. Don't force yourself!
The most important step, in my opinion, is not forcing yourself to translate something.
Even if you liked a visual novel to death, sometimes you just don't enjoy translating it. This is normal. To some people, translating just doesn't have the same value as reading.
You don't have to feel bad for quitting after you realise you don't really like it.
Don't beat yourself over it. It's much better to leave a project you know you're not having fun with than going through the pain of translating something you're not enjoying, which will most likely also affect the quality of your work. Doing the latter can even lead to you not enjoying the visual novel anymore. Who would want to do that?
 
If you can't find enjoyment in translating a particular visual novel. Don't do it.
 
I promise you, when you enjoy translating something, it feels like a breeze, because you relive the story, you interpret character's words more in depth, and it's like reliving the experience.
If you're feeling like it's a drag. Please reconsider what you're doing.
 
If you're not a translator:
 
Sorry but I'm lumping all the other positions here for the simple fact that you need a translator to even begin whatever kind of translation project you want (duh).
 
Now it's not to say you can't be successful if you're not one, but projects that start with no translator, statistically speaking, have a higher chance of dying, because you're not as attached to the visual novel since you haven't read it (most of the time, might not be the case sometimes), you don't understand the scope of the project, you're kind of an outsider to the novel itself, and it's much harder to get into a project like this, and thus I'm not fond of it.
 
But it's not to say everything is impossible so I'll try and give my best advice in this case too.
If you're not a translator, the one thing you need to do before anything is recruit a translator. Until then you'll be stuck in limbo.
And even if you get a translator, there's always the possibility they'll drop out of the project since they weren't part of the founding team.
 
This is my personal advice if you're not a translator:
 
1. Have the scripts ready!
Please do not proceed any further until you're sure you have a viable way of even translating the game.
If you're not a hacker, make sure you find someone who will help you hack the VN first and foremost.
I actually don't even advice you to make any form of public annoucement unless you're really desperate for one.
 
2. Try to find a translator you're familiar with or ask people you know if they know someone they trust.
It's important that your translator is reliable and unless you have someone else helping you, you'll likely be at loss on who to accept for help and you run into the very real possibility of them just quitting half way.
 
 
3. Make sure your translator has read the game and liked it! (always that step 1)
Again having a translator that's not 100% on board and that doesn't understand the project scale is bad practice, you need to make sure you're working with the right people
 
4. Have someone you can translation check with
You might be confident in your Japanese, but it's always nice to have someone re-check the lines with you to make sure you didn't commit any blunders.
I usually mark lines I'm not sure I translated properly and then I go through them with my friend and we usually end up finding a much better translation.
 
A translation checker doesn't have to be someone you go to all the time for every line, but it is a helpful position to fill in for those more complicated lines. 
And please make sure your TLC is someone with a very good understanding of Japanese.
 
You don't have to be ashamed for not knowing certain lines, it's perfectly normal not to, just make sure you have someone there to support you. It helps you understand things better and it helps make the project better.
 
5. Find an editor.
A lot of people claim to be editors, but only a few have actually tried the job, they  just assume because they are native speakers or their English level is really high that they can edit anything.
 
While part of an editor's job is indeed to make sure you're using good English syntax, it is also their job to make sure the prose flows nicely to the reader. Without a good editor you can end up having a text that's full of poor transitions and just general weeabooisms and literal translations you make.
 
Ideally never have more than 1 editor on the team. 
Different editors have different styles and having 2 editors essentially defeats the purpose of editing to begin with.
 
If you can't fill any position (i.e "I'm just a fan")
 
This is actually the most simple one, start learning!
 
I didn't know Japanese a year ago, and now I'm starting my own translation project. And all of it because I took the time to care to learn in order to enjoy a medium like visual novels.
 
The best thing you can do when you don't have the skills to help a project is to try and develop said skills instead of half assedly trying to start a project. I promise you it's not as hard as it seems, it just takes dedication and love.
 
Step 3
The last step i'd like to mention is one that usually leads to the downfall of many projects, and that is: Understanding the scale of your project
 
After you've gone through step 1 and step 2, you need to evaluate your own project to make sure it even has any chance of succeeding. This is when knowing your own skills comes into place.
 
Never start anything you're not sure you can finish.
There's nothing worse than starting something half assedly. If you're not 100% sure you can complete a project, you should consider not starting it, even if step 1 and 2 are looking good for you, gut feeling also comes into play, and if you're not invested in your project, you'll never finish it.
 
And this is not meant to contradict what I said earlier about quitting.
Some people wholeheartedly start a project but sometimes halfway through realise they just can't do it. This is fine because you took the time to evaluate it, even if it was halfway in, and made the better decision to abandon it and you learn from it.
 
But half assedly starting a project just shows you're naive and is a poor attitude to have.
 
When you're pondering wether or not you're going to start a translation project you have to consider things like:
 
1. How long it took you to finish the visual novel.
If you're just a beginner, you should ideally start with something small because you don't know your own endurance yet.
So if a visual novel took you more than 10 hours to finish, it might not be the best choice for you.
 
2. How many lines are there.
This one correlates with your translation pace.
 
In my case, before I was confident about my project, I tried translating lines and timing myself and realised 200 lines a day was pretty viable and comfortable for me. But that is also because the visual novel I read had less than 3,000 lines.
 
This pace is not ideal for longer visual novels since they'll take you a lot longer and that is why I chose to pick something small.
 
3. How much free time you have
Don't tackle a project if you know you have a busy schedule.
 
If you work or are attenting school/college, you may want to re-consider working on a project unless, again, you're confident you have a good translation pace in relation to the length of the visual novel and also that it won't impact your daily schedule too much.
 
Always make sure no matter what the scale it, you're invested in it, because that's the best way to build a path to success.
 
Other random tips
To those who think this sounds like a lot of work, well I'm glad it does, because it is important to know that translating visual novels is not a simple task, and those who go into it with such a mindset are usually the ones who end up quitting halfway, so I hope this improves your mindset and the way you look at translation projects.
 
Don't make promises you can't keep. If you have a public project, don't try to sugarcoat things to make yourself look better, always be honest with your audience.
 
The visual novel fan translation world can be cruel, especially if you tackle projects people care about. Again only tackle projects you're confident about.
 
Even if your visual novel is not popular, even if it's just a  nukige, please don't waver. Always translate what you like, no matter what it is, what's important is that you like it.
 
Don't set deadlines. Deadlines can be evil, they can be discouraging when you don't meet them and they're just pressure overall.
You can set personal goals to yourself, but never set public deadlines.
 
And last, but not least, have fun!
 

 
I hope this post is of some use to people. I really wanted to share my experiences with the Fuwanovel community since Fuwanovel was the whole reason I even got into translation in general.
 
And to those who don't think I'm qualified to rant on this matter because I'm not a pro or because I've just recently tried to do something bigger, I guarantee you I'm proud of my small translation project, because it was the fruit of my mistakes and how I learned from them, my studying and my love for the game itself (and yuri <3).
 
And because I made sure I knew 100% I could do this, I started it, and I don't regret it one single bit because every time I'm translating its scripts now, it's like replaying the game, and it feels great. And I hope one day to tackle bigger things, but I will only tackle things I like, and that's the way it will always be, regardless of length~
 
<insert witty conclusion>

Thanks for spotting that, it seems I had misspelled the name in the text.

Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms
Fully Translated

Summary

Spring is the flowering season, the season of the cherry blossoms. It is the time for first meetings and partings, when the buds start sprouting.

Yuma is a second-year student at Mihaya Academy who listens to love problems from girls at the school and gives them thoughtful advice. This has made him quite popular and loved, resulting in a 21,000 yen (taxes included) ‘love bounty’ placed on him. The girls came to him with problems ranging from jealousy to infidelity. Having heard about so many troubles related to love, Yuma lost any desire he had for it.

One day, a mysterious girl appeared before him. She had never been in love, but she believed that it was a wonderful thing. She asked him if he would like to be in love, and that as a love fairy, she will help his love come true.

A girl who cannot fall in love. A boy who has no interest in love. If they end up falling in love with each other, how will the world change?
 
Ending Guideline / Suggested Route Order

There are 5 routes. Mio (childhood friend), Konami (blood-related sister), Yuri (Easily embarrassed Disciplinary committee chairman), Ann (Student Council Prez/Senpai) and Tina (Shinigami).
 
Tina's route only unlocks after Ann's route.
 
Walkthrough

You probably won't even need this Walkthrough, since the choices are so straightforward. Nevertheless, here you have it.
If you find you are missing certain choices, they may be choices tied to the adult content. If your version of the game does not include these, do not worry.
Should you be missing any CGs, consider selecting both choices during the adult sections.
             Konami Route    
             Mio Route    
              Ann Route  
               Yuri Route    
             Tina Route   How Flags Work and Other Useless Notes
Attribution

This walkthrough is based on info attained by playing the game over 20 times, trying pretty much all relevant combinations of choices.
Summary stolen from Hau Omochikaeri (according to VNDB)
Thanks to CalneCA for telling me how Tina's route works! 
 
[Current Tasks:
-Make sure the choices remain accurate after official release.
-Make sure there are no further choices during the H-Scenes]

KKKK Awesome!!

At least give him something nice....

This discussion makes me think of this:
 

Whoa! Don't worry! I fixed it.

1)Download English patch from Translator's Website A Profile English Patch
2)Uninstall original Patch with engpatch_uninstall file in the Game folder of A Profile
3)Open the English patch that was downloaded from the Translator's Website
4)It will ask you for non-ero patch to be installed. Make sure the box is unmarked.
5)When It asks about where to install the patch, click browse and locate the game folder, click on it.
6)Install
7)Go to the Game Folder
8)There should be a folder named with some japanese letters.
9)Go to the folder
10)In it should be some files including a engpatch_uninstall file
11)Right-click and Cut ALL the files
12)Go back to the main folder. Paste the files.
13)Enjoy game with enabled H-Scenes.

Thanks for the help

This list won't feature the VNs in order of "how good they are". Rating them would be way too much of a clusterfuck to me.
The VNs are not in their respective order. Meaning number 1 is not the best, and so on.
 
1_CHAOS; HEAD
 
2_Cross Channel
 
3_G-Senjou no Maou
 
4_Fate/Stay Night
 
5_Forest
This Visual Novel is the easiest visual novel translated to get a bad ending without using a walkthrough- which just adds to the fun of it. It makes a massive amount of references to common literature, which makes it even better.
 
6_Katahane
It may seem like an ordinary moege- the atmosphere is light, the story is full of cuteness, which you can note by the character design and soundtrack. It gets really good in the middle, and you'll be dying to know what happens in the end. A game with multiple perspectives, it's definitely one of the most enjoyable Visual Novels I've ever read.
 
7 Majikoi
 
8_Little Busters!
 
9_Tsukihime
"You shouldn't tell lies that you can't even fool yourself with"
 
10_Swan Song
A post apocalyptic Visual Novel.
 
11_Symphonic Rain
 
It may seem like your ordinary moege. Trust me, it's not.
 
12_Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo (and sequel)
 
13_Sekien no Inganock
Steampunk. An atmosphere full of mysteries and references that will make your head blow up.
 
14_Steins; Gate
A visual novel that deals extensively with time travel and it's consequences.
 
15_Utawarerumono
 
16_Fault: Milestone (1 & 2)
 
17_Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni 
 
18_Kara no Shoujo
 
19_Umineko no Naku Koro ni 
 
20_Planetarian
 
21_Ever 17
Another top 10.
 
22_Remember11
It lacks in the ending, but otherwise the story of this VN has enough to easily become one of my all-time favorites.
 
23_Zanmataisei Demonbane
 
24_Rewrite
"Could it possibly be rewritten, this fate of hers?"
Another one that enters the top 10.
 
25_Narcissu
 
26_Grisaia no Kajitsu
 
27_Saya no Uta
Only if you enjoy dark and messed up settings.
 
28_Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni
 
29_Eien no Aselia
 
30_Rose Guns Days (1 & 2)
There are small sections of gameplay on this one, but you can skip them by pressing the space bar, so this still qualifies.
 
31_Sengoku Rance
I feel obliged to comment on this VN before suggesting it to anyone. It's an Alicesoft title, which speaks a lot for itself... If you don't know how it's going to be like, well.. Kind of tough to describe. Lots of sex, including comedy rape. Alicesoft tends to make the whole story a comedy until right near the end, where things actually do get serious. It's worth checking out, if you don't mind Rance's personality. 
 
32_Phenomeno
Want a short VN that can captivate you for their whole duration? Here is it.
Visual novel adapted from the youth horror novel written by Hajime Ninomae and illustrated by yoshitoshi ABe.
 
33_Ef- A Fairy Tale of the Two
 
34_Dysfunctional Systems
Another one great for those who want short Visual Novels.
 
35_Daibanchou
Another Alicesoft title. While Rouga is not near Rance's level when it comes to pissing off people, alicesoft's style is something which often doesn't please people. 
36_Yume Miru Kusuri
The endings pack quite a punch.
 
37_Kikokugai- The Cyber Slayer
 
38_Eden 
 
39_Hoshizora no Memoria
 
40_Katawa Shoujo
Yep, it's somewhat overrated. Still, the fact that it is substantially easier for those who are starting to play visual novels to read should not be discarded, and overall, the story was good.
 
41_World End Economica
 
42_YU-NO
 
43_Shikkoku no Sharnoth
Yep, there is a minigame on this one. If you download a save data you can skip the minigame, though. So it still qualifies. Another VN that enters my top 10.
 
44_Muv Luv Alternative
The first Muv Luv didn't have enough to enter this list. You should still read it, though~
MLA is definitely awesome.
 
45_Dangan Ronpa
 
46_Comyu - Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku
 
47_Hanachirasu
 
48_Ayakashibito
 
49_I/O
 
50_Deardrops
 

Hey everybody, this is a pretty significant post. Please saddle in with me.
 
Fuwanovel is migrating to both a new domain (Fuwanovel.net) and a new server (which we host). The old “.org” domain is going to be redirecting to the new “.net” domain automatically, so even if you forget to mark your calendars with the following dates, you’ll still end up in the right place. Be sure to update your bookmarks at some point, though : P
 
(Tomorrow) Wednesday 2/18/2015 – Evening: the forums, the Fuwazette blog, and the FuwaReviews blog will be redirected to the new domain. Next week (as late as 3/1/2015): The front site will redirect to the new “.net” domain  
For those of you who are nosey and want to start poking around the “.net” domain right away, you’ll find all the services I had mentioned but the forums will be outdated and the front site may or may not be online or functional. Do not panic – we’ll update the forums at the time of the transfer tomorrow night, and no content will be lost.
 
 
Precautions and Cause
Some of you will remember our failed migration last year. We’ve taken significant precautions to prevent a repeat of last year: Nayleen has optimized the server and we have paid for a significantly more powerful machine to host the site. Nay and I both did our homework looking for hosts, and we’re very pleased with the one we’ve got: scaling the droplet (the hosting power) is easy, and we’re enjoying a good value for what we’re getting.
 
We did this move for many reasons. Chief among them were legal concerns and recommendations, and my deep-felt responsibility to protect the many community leaders from new legal risks (of which I’ve only very recently become aware).  More positively, it also needed to happen because we have a lot of new content and services rolling out in the near future.
 
 
Consequences of TOS
The hot-button issue is compliance with our host’s TOS. I’m engaged today and tomorrow inspecting it and getting legal clarifications, but I do not believe we will be able to host torrents on the front site following the move and the D&R board will be too much of a liability to keep. It wasn’t my intention to have this happen all at once, but I feel like we have little recourse in light of protecting one another. I apologize if the legal liability is shocking, but the best way forward is to admit that what’s done is done, and the only thing we have control over is how we choose to move forward.
 
 
Compensation
I don’t know how else to say this, so please bear with me: I realize that losing the torrents will rub some of you the wrong way. It should make all of us concerned, as they were a major draw to the site. I’ve got two thoughts on the matter: 1) the year-end surveys indicated that torrent usage among the three surveyed usergroups (core, FB, Twitter) was much lower than anticipated, which will soften the blow, and 2) new features must by necessity rise to attract users in their place. Here is a taste of what I’ve been working on over the past few months and crystallizing (hurriedly) in the last few days:
The forums have been updated with blogging software. Users can input links to their own blogs, import RSS feeds of their blog, or create blogs hosted by Fuwanovel itself. This includes official/featured blogs such as the Recognition blog, or the Dev Boards Update blog (which is open to all the project managers in the dev boards to post freely on), or the Help Wanted blog (which similarly allows project managers to post freely when they’re looking to fill a position). All these blogs will have their own RSS feeds and will be incorporated into the corresponding Fuwazette categories. (Saving Tiago, Zaka and others time and hassle) ^ this blog functionality will have a lot of cool implications (such as for private clubs and the VN readers club!) The FuwaReviews site will now be reviews.fuwanovel.net, and it will be much more robust than simply a blog of the team’s reviews: I have negotiated with ~a dozen prominent VN bloggers and received the green-light to incorporate feeds of their VN reviews into the reviews site. I plan to continue to reach out to more bloggers and build this base. Things are looking pretty positive. I’ve been in productive talks with several OELVN devs (if I’ve talked to you about this, please don’t name names) and it looks like we’ll be able to form productive agreements for early-access game reviews, interviews, and PR access (we get emails/rss feeds of exclusive insider info to publish on our blogs before they announce it publicly). I can’t finalize these agreements until the full “.net” site is live, but it looks promising! I believe that I’ve arranged for an interview with [two gaming site writers/freelancers]. The interview would be about the VN landscape, Fuwanovel’s history, and how we plan to grow/expand in the future. No firm commitments, yet, but I’m in talks. There is another possible opportunity for an interview in a similar but more tech-focused major online blog as well. The front site redesign team is going to be launched for-reals in the next 72 hours. I’ve made a template for, and several examples of, mock-ups (which are flawed, but conversation starters), and I’m busy this afternoon uploading useful assets/psd resources to be available and ready for the team. Emi has agreed to be our secret-genius weapon, which means we can’t fail : P We’ve purchased a forums add-on which will allow us to use forums content in clever ways in our other websites. I’ve started putting together some ideas of ways it could integrate with the front site (including “FuwaScores” of games where fuwanovel users can score the games they’ve played and track their VN playing history), but its scope is much larger than that one implementation. With Nay’s help, I hope to come up with lots of cool ways to use this. Part of my discussion with devs is their agreement to a “releases” feed which would track OELVN releases and which could easily integrate TL releases on PC, but also on iOS and Android. I’ve been talking to several of the mobile app store VN devs, and they’ve almost universally been enthusiastic about the idea ^ This would be incorporated into the games section and a “What have I missed?” section which would list the important recent news and releases Fuwanovel Academy – the evolution of the “ultimate VN starter kit” idea – will be a section on the front site which will explain VNs, help players get started with a VN within 10 minutes of starting reading, and provide a lot of advanced information about the VN landscape, “movers and shakers” in the western VN world, and (hopefully!) some exclusive (read: slightly longer than normal) demos from our dev allies Obviously added on top of this is outreach to TL groups and OELVN teams to get them to use the Fuwanovel dev boards and/or the updates feed Expansion of the creative corner and dev boards  
Last of all, I’d like to mention that our host of the past two years has been very generous to us. I’ve passed along our gratitude for the extra nine months he’s given us to put our ducks in a row, and I want the community to know he’s making the transition very easy for us and being very supportive.
 
 
 
No matter what we do, we're going to lose some of our traffic and our userbase. I’m convinced this is a necessary decision (if a painful and hard one), and that we’re going to make it through this. People can say a lot of things about Fuwanovel, but nobody can deny that we have staying power.
 
Thank you for your time. I realize this is a lot, and it’s overwhelming. Please don’t be afraid to speak up or ask questions.
 
Tay

This game seems nice!
 
Thanks for the Review!

Wait...did you really change your avatar to that thing?

So i can touch my 2d's waifu bewbs~~~

Never had one, but I had one with conventional porn.
 
So what happens is there is this one porn video I apparently downloaded months ago and forgot all about it. Windows Media Player picked this up and now displays a big-ass thumbnail of porn in its menu.
 
I had no idea about this, of course. So when I decided to watch Hangover 2 with my (male) cousin in the living room, I was fine and dandy with connecting my effing laptop to the living room TV via HDMI. My mom and lil sister were in the room, and I decided to try opening the movie from windows media player.
 
Thankfully, my sister was busy on her laptop and my mom was checking something on her phone. My cousin and I spotted the thumbnail at the same moment, but for the several seconds it was up there, it was scary as HELL.

My girlfriend and I play BL games together and once my dad walked in and looked over my shoulder during a really weird part of Enzai. He just said "Is that...?" and I told him exactly what it was and now he never asks what I'm doing anymore. It was more awkward and embarrassing for him than it was for me, to be honest.

Something like this hasn't happened to me in quite a while. When I was reading Dacapo 2 several years ago, when I reached Anzu's sex scene, right in the middle of it my mom walked into my room. My desk and computer are positioned in such a way where there is no way that people entering can see my screen. So I had time to exit. But I was too nervous to think properly. While I spoke calmly to her, inside my mind I was frantically trying to control the situation. She ended up not stepping further in my room, so even though I didn't exit the scene, I avoided all danger. Man, I almost forgot about that. 

Hmm, well there was one time where I was playing an older nukige (pretty sure it was X-Change) in my room. Being an older game, It defaulted to full screen, meaning that it was harder to just minimizing it. So when my mom came in to talk to me about something, I panicked and, forgetting that I could have just hit the escape key, slammed my laptop shut. Mom then spent about 5 minutes telling me to open it back up because she thought I was hiding something, and she didn't go away until I at least showed her my lock screen. I got away with it, but since then, I've stopped playing anything too hardcore when she's home.

Two days ago, I was playing Muv-Luv on my laptop in the living room while my family was watching 20/20. My sister was sitting next to me, and I was kind of paying more attention to the show rather then the game. Apparently I kept on clicking without even looking at my screen. I look back at my computer, and to my horror. I see 


 
Luckily, she didn't seem to notice, so I immediately closed my laptop.

So today I was playing Sharin no kuni Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo again, I normally don't play vns in front of any family member or I try to do it while nobody is in the house, well this time I didn't... I don't know why, maybe it was because i thought that this novel didn't have any sex scene or at least I didn't remember having any(I remember having a minor bath scene but no sex or anything)...huge mistake, just when the eroge scene started my dad entered in my room...my god what a shitty situation, I started hitting the damn control key but the damn scene didn't want to end, it went on and on with my father right beside me not knowing what to say or do, same with me, I was sweating like crazy.
So after a few minutes that felt like hours he started talking to me like if nothing was going on and then he left...
 

 
Have any of you had a similar situation?
 

I don't know much of the purpose of this program yet, but I think the point of it is to help build friendships in the community. Unlike the BM program, this seems to be a more informal thing. Yes you can go to the recommendation sub forum to find VNs to read next, and when you finish a VN, you could always try to get a discussion going on VN talk. But personally, most of the interesting discussions I had on VNs happened over E-mail or pm. A VN mentor program would allow people the opportunity to find somebody to talk to VNs with, in a more personal way (since forums are kind of impersonal). The goal seems to be to create personal connections around that VNs people like.
 
For example if somebody is new to VNs and loves Clannad, and they get me as a mentor. Then I could privately talk to them about Clannad and introduce them to Kanon, ONE~, Air and all the KEY classics. When they read say ONE~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~ (technically not KEY, but made by many of the people who originally founded KEY), they might have a lot of thoughts they want to share, but can't find anyone to discuss it with. That's when they would pm their mentor (me) and we could have an involved discussion on ONE~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~. The role of having mentors is to help personalize the community I think . Of course these are just my thoughts and I could be completely wrong.  

Hello everybody,
 
I'm going to be busy all weekend working on front-site and behind-the-scenes stuff, so I'm going to post this now instead of next week. If anyone has questions or thoughts or suggestions, feel free to reply in this topic. Let me know you're interested by replying in this topic as well.
 
 
Introduction to the Mentorship Program Experiment:
New VN players will be able to easily request a player mentor who has some experience playing VNs and is willing to be a friend and contact as they begin this great adventure. The mentor will email/PM an introduction to the new player, talk about the VN player's first game (and, ideally, nerd out with them), suggest follow-up games based on the new player's preferences, and be willing to answer quick questions such as "How do I make my computer Japanese?" or "What is a senpai-sama?".
 
Mentors will be given some resources (including answers to the above two questions and TL/OELVN game list suggestions) they can send to their mentees, and after the front site redesign there will be a large amount of additional material targeted at new players for your/their reference.
 
 
Requirements:
Played and enjoyed at least 2 VNs in the "Starter" list below: Capacity to nerd out about visual novels You need to be nice  : P Some Fuwa Exposure: Been a member of Fuwanovel for at least 1 month and have >20 posts Each mentor can choose how many mentees she/he wants to have  
 
Starter VNs
Katawa Shoujo Planetarian Narcissu Fate/Stay Night Clannad G-Senjou Sharin no Kuni (original game, not FD) More will be added with time  
 
What you'll do as a mentor:
You'll get an email/PM with a new mentee's contact information You'll send that person a PM/email (based on their preferences) introducing yourself, telling a little about your history with VNs, and you'll attach a basic FAQ PDF pamphlet which I/Fuwa will provide to you After that, essentially, you just be nice and be a friend. Answer their questions, talk about the game they're playing, nerd out with them (Sakura = best girl), offer game suggestions, show them around Fuwa, help them find the next game to try, etc. Not a big time commitment, especially considering the demand will be slower as we're starting out Make friends!  
 
Interested?
If you're interested in being a player mentor, let me know by posting below. The program is going to be slowly implemented, so you won't be given a mentee right away. In the early stages of this program I'll probably be contacting you to pick your brain about how it's going, but other than that it shouldn't be too much of a commitment.