Getsuya

Edit: Sorry, didn't read the rules carefully. I won't be able to do a long-term commitment so never mind.

Some friends have expressed interest in 'Sausage Matsuri' so I'm tentatively going for that. Also my wife thinks the whole thing is hilarious and loves the idea. She just thinks moe anime girls are creepy, thus the ban on normal VNs. Incidentally the first otome game I'm playing (Black Wolves Saga Last Hope) has an incredibly badass and interesting setting and backstory so half of me is worried I accidentally picked The Best Otome Game right off the bat and everything else is going to be a letdown while the other half is going 'holy crap if there are other otome games this good this project is going to be freaking incredible!' Look forward to my review of Black Wolves Saga, coming soon!

Hi it's me! I'm back! I got married and stopped playing VNs (since they wouldn't go over too well with the wife) so I kinda ditched the community, but now I'm back! See I've got a foolproof plan: while my wife may complain about me playing games where I romance cutesy anime girls she certainly can't raise an eyebrow at me playing games where I romance hot anime guys. So I've dusted off my good ol' PSP and am getting myself a nice backlog of otome games (I'm going off of a few Japanese lists of otome games with good plot for suggestions). And once I play through them I'm going to review them on a blog here! The whole concept is looking at these games from a straight male perspective, which may provide interesting insight as I'm obviously not the target demographic. What I need is a good name for the blog. I was going to use 'Brotome', but that has sadly already been taken by a guy doing a similar gimmick on his Youtube channel. So now I'm fresh out of ideas for a good, catchy name for my blog. I've thought of a few dumb ones: Reversing the Harem Sausage Matsuri But I'd love to hear some good ideas on what a good 'guy reviewing otome games' blog name would be!

It'd probably be better if I just put up a wishlist. Between the games I own currently, the games I've played in the past and don't wish to own again, and the games I'm just not very interested in there is a pretty specific set left so I'll just make a list. Here's a list of pretty much every game I'd be looking for the US version of: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wTtXXTb3rxVYRtYWZ_EjlNsFPSryahKcDihrvDvV7X0/edit?usp=sharing If there are awesome games that aren't on that list just assume I either A) own them already in English or Japanese or B) have already played them/do not wish to own them at this point.

Ahh sorry I guess I should have specified I'm really only looking to get rid of the lot, not piece by piece just because coordinating all the shipping and stuff would be too much of a headache. Sorry

Aaand to sweeten the pot, here's the OP from every VN I'm offering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YlHRCVD07E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mnOq3H8zfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbQqlu603eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okr_6e_nlZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwOtLH0XLGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UQyywc9_EU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWi87Bxawe4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7wPnWweMeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQUwQNkeODk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ziTGacyXWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ySaki2mdqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUb5mDgL7Nw http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm28775 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtkM0Aza4qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k459tFf01A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLDI9QuukGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPVcGanIaMQ

So I'm getting married in 2 months. While my wife enjoys video games and doesn't mind me playing them one bit, I just don't feel like the VNs I own are something I'm going to want to play once we're living together. Nor do I think I'll ever have the time to sit down and read through any of them. Honestly I was considering just throwing them away. That might sound horrific, but I don't have the boxes or manuals for any of them so I just have a bunch of naked (official) DVDs in a case, so I can't really sell them. I mean I could, but I feel like I wouldn't get a very nice price for the set and selling them one by one would be a huge pain and not worth it in the end. Then a thought came to me: how about instead of selling them I pass them on to someone else who will enjoy them? And so I would like to offer a chance to one lucky Fuwan to receive my collection of Japanese all-ages VNs (sorry no adult stuff in my collection). The contents are as follows (note as I said all of these are just the discs, no box or manual for any) PS2 Higurashi Matsuri (w/ 2 disc soundtrack) (this is the Higurashi PS2 game that was released before Part 8 was out, so it has a different ending than the rest of the series. If you want the real ending you have to buy Higurashi Append separately.) (Note also that Japanese PS1/2 games will only work with Japanese region PS2/1s and that Key PC games need to be patched to work with non-Japanese PCs) PS2 Haru no Ashioto (https://vndb.org/v179) PS1 Hiza no Ue no Partner (a raising sim sort of like Princess Maker except you're raising 3 adorable cat girls. I never got around to trying it out it just looked cute) PS1 Kagayaku Kisetsu he (https://vndb.org/v51) PS2 Galaxy Angel (https://vndb.org/v860) PS2 Kanon (https://vndb.org/v33) PS2 Te no Hira wo Taiyou ni (https://vndb.org/v1113) PS2 Memories Off Duet (https://vndb.org/r26470) PC Rewrite (requires Japanese PC or patch) (w/soundtrack) PS2 Clannad (https://vndb.org/v4) PS2 Mai-Hime (https://vndb.org/v65) PS2 Brighter Than Dawning Blue (https://vndb.org/v232) PS2 Iris (https://vndb.org/v2312) PC Symphonic Rain (w/ special ost) PS1 Sister Princess (https://vndb.org/v4681) PC Little Busters (https://vndb.org/v5) PC Angel Beats (requires Japanese PC or patch) (w/ 2 osts) (https://vndb.org/v13774) Now while I don't want to sell these I also don't want to just give them away. Instead I want to give you something you can enjoy and I'd like to receive something I can enjoy in exchange! The two things I'd love to receive in return are games or books. What kinds of games? Either US or Japanese PS1/2 or DS games or US 3DS games. I like RPGs and horror games especially, though I'm willing to consider all kinds of offers. As for books I'd like complete series of novels either Japanese or English. I hate having to buy pieces of a series so it's all or nothing. I like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery... honestly any good novel series could catch my eye. Though I'm offering 16 games, some of which were quite expensive when I bought them and which you will be getting without needing to pay shipping like you would if you were to try to get them from Japan, I am not asking for a completely equal exchange. These are naked disks and there's a fair chance you may not like all of them (though I did pick all the games (minus the cat-raising one) from lists of highly rated VNs) so I'm not going to be too greedy. But please make fair offers. I would feel bad making you bid against each other which I think would just cause bad feelings so what I'm going to do is give it a week. At the end of a week I will choose the person who has made the most interesting and fair offer (or an offer I found to be exceedingly interesting or exceedingly fair) and communicate with that person to set up the shipment. During the week I'll pop in to let people know if some of the things I'm being offered are things I already own, just to keep things fair. (DVDs or Blu-Rays of classic black and white horror films would also be appreciated)

I'm not a huge fan of Illusions of Gaia. I'd definitely recommend trying out Actraiser and Terranigma though. Both of those are (in my opinion) much more engaging and interesting than IoG.

I was feeling nostalgic so I sat down and played through Actraiser, which is an amazing game. I enjoyed the nostalgia trip so much I might just go through the whole Heaven and Earth series (Actraiser, Soul Blazer, Illusions of Gaia and Terranigma). They're all such amazing games.

The best portable for VNs is the PSP. It's dirt, dirt cheap and very easy to get a lot of good VNs on it. Unless you mean in English. It doesn't have many of those.

Still playing Iris and... I'm pretty sure this game has the most adorable character art of any VN I've played up to now, and I might have a hard time finding cuter art after this. I mean Symphonic Rain had some cute character designs, and I've played a few others with cute characters but... not like this. I said it reminds me a lot of Kage Donbo's style but even hers seems a little too simple compared to this. The characters have a lot of personality to them so they're not as simple as Kage Donbo, but the faces and just the cute way they look is similar. It helps that they all have really cute personalities too, and their outfits and expressions really help as well. I don't think I'd notice their cuteness quite as much if they weren't so animated. I wish Kid had gotten more popular so they could have remade this game with whatever that stuff they did for To Heart 2 is where the characters look fully animated. http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm28775 There's the OP for more of an idea how cute these girls are. Also one of them is Rie Kugumiya (and her route is really weird).

Confession: When I found out J. K. Rowling had made up a wizarding school in Japan I immediately had a concept for a fancition set there and now I'm writing it because my fiance is really into Harry Potter and it's something fun for us to chat about.

As you might guess from my avatar I'm hooked on Yokai Watch lately. I played it in Japan and really enjoyed it but didn't finish it before I traded in all my Japanese gaming stuff to come back to America, so now I grabbed myself an English copy. The story is pretty much just an anime (though honestly the anime's story is better... loads better) but the fun thing about the game is catching all the Yokai and doing all the subquests. The reason the subquests are so fun is because they all show how the yokai interact with the human world. Like early on you go to a daycare where everyone has a cold because three yokai that are based off of cold symptoms are hanging around. Or you meet an idol who wants to go through town un-noticed so you use a yokai that hides people's presence to help her out. It's so charming how your little buddies can fix things up or cause wacky problems, and that's really where the fun of the game is. Can't wait for #2 to come out!

Well I'm going through my collection of PS2 games I bought way back when I first studied abroad in Japan. At the time I just grabbed a bunch of high-rated PS2 VNs to save for when I could actually read them, so now I'm actually reading them. The one I'm currently playing is: https://vndb.org/v2312 A very un-known game that even so was pretty well received. Kid is a very decent VN company that mostly only produced all-ages stuff for consoles with a few rare PC ports (they're most famous series is probably the Infinity games, followed by Memories Off, but they did a ton of stuff during the Saturn/PS/PS2/DC eras). Anyway there are many things that make it worth playing. The art is very adorable, and reminds me of Kage Donbo's style. It also deals with a full cast of characters much younger than normal VNs (everyone is in middle school except 2 older girls) so the characters (including the main) are all still very childish and are dealing with issues that face a younger generation than most VNs set in academies for older youth. The music is also very good. And the characters are so expressive! This was still the era where even having lip-flaps was a luxury in VNs, so Kid definitely delivers with lots of pose and expression changes as well as lip-movements. Also the main character has a name and definite personality, unlike many VN protags. Unfortunately his personality is that he thinks and worries too much. The game even pokes fun at how long his internal monologues are. Personally though I find it nice when I'm reading a VN -about- a guy and his story with these girls rather than the VNs where you're supposed to kind of assume the role of the main character and pretend that it's you in there. I played through one route of this quite a few years ago and I remember it being very surprising in the directions it chose to go, so I'm excited to see what else the game has to offer. The description given by vndb is definitely selling it short. There is a lot of plot and twists in this game beyond just a boy trying to pick a girlfriend. Anyway I'll post up a full review when I'm done, and keep moving through my collection. Some of the other PS2 games I have on hand are Haru no Ashioto (one of Minori (of ef fame)'s early works), the Mai-Hime VN, and some other random games. I'm also thinking of buying a bunch more and making a collection of PS1/2 era VNs, since I really like the styles from this era and the fact that it's all all-ages. Plus most of it was made directly for console so it's not like they're cutting stuff out. Anyway I'll keep y'all updated. (Here's a better look at the characters/art style:Picture! )

Depends on the language, on the country you're searching for the job in, and on the industry you're looking for the job in. For Japanese there is always going to be an open market for translators and interpreters in America because people who can actually do native-level Japanese and English are not as common as you are implying. You also have to take into account things like region (coastal cities with large Asian populations will obviously have more competition than mid-west cities where not many Asians live but where car and industry companies are all set up). Honestly it's just like any other college skillset; you have to look and work at it to make sure you can get into a career, but there's definitely careers there if you put in the work to find them.

The Road to Interpreter Since there seems to be a bit of interest in this, I will detail the exact steps I took to arrive where I am. 1. I began studying Japanese in high school through correspondence. During this time I really only learned hiragana, katakana and some very simple sentences but anyway I got started early. 2. I then studied it at my local community college. This was still pretty simple stuff and I was mostly just biding my time until I turned 19 when... 3. I went to Brazil and lived there for 2 years preaching the gospel for my church. During this time I learned Portuguese and also learned to break out of my loner shell and talk to people and open up. I also learned to love other cultures and accept cultural differences, which I think was very important. 4. I got back and went to a real college instead of a community college. I picked a college based on its strong study abroad program because I intended from the very start to study abroad in Japan. 5. After doing a little bit of study at that college I studied abroad. I cannot stress the importance of studying abroad in Japan for learning the language. It is such a nuanced language that is tied so deeply with Japanese culture that you really can't learn the one without the other. I realize not everyone has the finances for this, but there are tons of financing options for students, so you should take advantage of anything you can to make it over, even going in debt. I went pretty far in debt to do my study abroad, but it was worth it. If you don't take advantage of this while at college it could become very difficult for you to make it over to Japan later as you get caught up in working, then having a family etc. 6. While studying abroad I took the JLPT levels 3 and 2 and passed both. This is important. The JLPT unlocks many options later on, since it is the only real way to get certification of how good at Japanese you are. Many companies will want to know what level you are at, and being at at least level 2 is an important starting point for you in the Japanese industry. 6. After graduating (actually while graduating) I signed up for the JET Programme: http://jetprogramme.org/en/ Most people know this as an English teaching program, but there is also the option of being a 'CIR' or Coordinator of International Relations. This is a position for people who know Japanese already. You will be put to work in a community center (City Hall, international center etc) helping to run events and promote international friendships. The pay is good (especially for a person fresh out of college) and all they require is a degree in anything. If you have the JLPT and can interview well you have a good shot at becoming a CIR. This is invaluable. Being a CIR gives you 2-5 years of experience living and working in a Japanese office. Office Japanese is a lot different from what you'll learn in textbooks or what you'll see in books/manga/anime/VNS. And it's very important because: 7. The JLPT N1. It's entirely based around office and work words. It is meant to test whether a person would be capable of communicating in a work environment in Japan. Actually having worked in an office gave me a huge leg up in passing this. 8. After 2 years I decided to come back to America. I discovered that in Japan, with my lack of any other area of study, I would only be able to take minimum-wage jobs in big cities like Tokyo where I would barely be able to make ends meet. Unfortunately, minimum-wage translation jobs in Japan don't really care if the people they hire are native English speakers or not. They'll hire just about anyone with English experience, so you're competing with tons of people in Japan. Without a special skillset to offer beyond just English-Japanese it's very hard to find a good job in Japan without spending a lot of time making very little money and gaining experience or getting very, very lucky. 9. Before coming back I posted my resume up on Monster, a site for uploading resumes and searching for jobs. Very soon I received a contact from a headhunting company that specifically finds workers for automotive jobs. They told me that automotive companies based in Japan are in dire need of translators/interpreters in the US. If I was willing to move wherever they needed me, they could definitely get me a job even though I had no background or training in automotive terminology. 10. And so here I am. Living and studying abroad, I feel, was the thing that really gave me a boost in finding this job. Living abroad by yourself shows independence and drive that companies really love. It gave me the confidence I needed to do well at interviews and adapt to crazy situations (like moving across the US with no car or house and getting all of that figured out in a week before immediately starting work). I think the market is very solid for automotive translation, and it's a very good thing to aim for right now since they are always going to need translators and interpreters at these companies (and the turnover rate is a little high, just due to folks getting experience and moving on to higher-paying positions at other companies).

If at all possible while you're still in school I'd take some classes in Engineering or Medical as that will help give you an edge when applying for interpreting jobs. Medical and Automotive are the 2 biggest industries that hire Japanese interpreters and translators. The other is Patent Law but that seems to require the most study to get into.

I work as a professional translator/interpreter for a car company. It's awesome. Here is my list of reasons why this is the greatest job: 1. No take home stress. At my previous job I could never enjoy days off because I was always worrying about things that had to be done or projects I had to complete at work. As a translator/interpreter there is none of that. I could be in the most stressful meeting ever with people shouting back and forth and huge implications for the company but as soon as I walk out of that meeting it all slides off my back because it's not my problem. I'm just there to translate. I enjoy the hell out of my days off now. 2. You are the boss's best bud. Most companies in the US with a Japanese parent company (which are most of the companies that really need a translator badly) have mainly Japanese managing staff. All these Japanese managers can usually speak English just fine but they like to relax during meetings and use a translator instead. This means you're always there by the boss's side. From day one you're their personal buddy and you've got his ear. That's some job security. 3. Speaking of job security: everyone in the business knows that machine translation doesn't work. Plus they know that audio machine translation is a distant dream of the future. And it's not like every single Japanese worker is going to know how to speak Engineering-level English and it's certainly not like any of your American engineers are going to learn any Japanese. These companies will be needing translators 50 years in the future. 4. Tied with job security is the fact that you are worth your weight in gold. Getting a solid Japanese translator out to the American mid-west is like waiting for lightning to strike. We are a rarity and a hot commodity. Though it takes a little luck to get picked up when you have no experience in the field you want to interpret in, once you have 2 or so years under your belt suddenly you can go anywhere, do anything! Companies in the area will trip over themselves trying to outbid each other for an experienced engineering interpreter. The world is your oyster. 5. Studying kanji at work? Absolutely! It's training for the job isn't it? I use a site called WaniKani and everyone's totally cool with me using 30-40 minutes a day crunching my reviews on there. What they don't know is I'm mostly perfecting my kanji so I can finally sit down and read Dies Irae but hey it helps with the job too so who cares! 6. Probably best of all is no fanboys complaining about your translations. Most of the engineers will be happy just to have a general gist of what these papers say in English. It's not like manga/anime/game translation where every translation choice you make will be dissected and whined about. Since you are the only lifeline between the English and the Japanese both sides will treat you like a saint. Even the simplest translation I do never fails to gain me a heartfelt thanks, which is probably one of the best perks of the job. People really, truly appreciate what you do and are verbally grateful for it. Now of course I realize that the company I work for might be an exception. The people here are really nice. But I think translators may find similar situations at other positions of this kind. I think a lot of anime/game/VN fans that learn Japanese get tunnel-vision thinking that game/anime/manga translation is where they want to end up, but I heartily recommend you look into automotive translation if you can. It's a great industry and I'm enjoying the heck out of it every day. I'll be happy to answer any questions about my job and how I got here in this thread.

I actually have a bunch of older PS1/PS2 VNs sitting around that I should play. I think I'll repurpose my review blog. I don't have a Vita anymore, but I could go with the theme of reviewing old PS1/2 era VNs. Especially ones that don't have PC releases. (I'm also playing around with the idea of doing an otome review blog from a guy's perspective and calling it Brotome)

I was digging through the random collection of PS2/1 games I have from my various trips to Japan and I found that I had a copy of Sister Princess the VN. Well the anime wasn't horrible (it wasn't good, but it wasn't horrible) and I wondered if the VN would go into more detail about all of the girls and the strange dynamic of being the brother of 12 girls who aren't far enough apart in age to be physically possible unless we're talking a one father many many mothers situation. I flew through one of the routes in about 2-3 hours. It sucked. The game is 99/100ths common route with the only thing that changes being a few brief scenes with your chosen girl scattered throughout. These scenes are pointless repetitions of 'I love you so much big brother!' or whatever single-note problem that particular character has. They all only have one, just like they all only have one personality trait. Picking a girl and seeing her route through to the end is an easy way to get sick and tired of her voice and personality by the end of the game. There really aren't 'routes' since that would denote some kind of story arc or conclusion after the common route. Which there isn't. On the last day of the common route the girl will make some declaration of love and then the credits roll. The only big thing you get to decide in the game (aside from which girl to pursue) is whether you will be blood-related to the girl or not. By picking all the sort of mean options while not completely shutting her out you get the blood-relative ending, and by picking all the lovey-dovey answers you get the blood-related ending. That's an interesting concept that would have been more compelling if it had been pursued at all instead of just changing the ending slightly. Some character's routes even hint at things like missing their absent parents etc. but nothing ever comes of it. Girls that are crying over being lonely and missing their mom are sunny and happy the next day with no reason given for the change. But I'm not conveying clearly why this game is bad. Now I will: 1. The character arcs are non-existent. When they are introduced the girls present their one-note personality and that's it. And that's all there ever is. Any issues a girl has at the beginning of the game will still exist at the end. 2. Aria is the worst VN heroine ever. Bar none. In the introduction her maid gives you a chocolate with a letter in which Aria complains about having to give you the chocolate because then she can't eat it and begins crying in the letter because she can't eat the chocolate. She spends the entire game crying over frivolous things like this. All she does is cry. She has no other personality traits. 3. The CG are bad. They are boring and drab and highlight scenes that don't need to be highlighted. There are one or two stand-outs but I doubt any players will feel driven to try to find them all like they would in a good VN. 4. The music is forgettable and bad. The OP almost put me to sleep 5. The game forces you to be a dick by ignoring all the other girls to single-mindedly pursue the one who's route you are doing. Despite this all the other girls will constantly be popping up (due to the common route) and yet the game never punishes you for heartlessly and constantly shooting them down. All in all the game is just boring. Honestly the anime was better, which is saying a lot since the anime was mediocre at best. With this lack of content or good plot this is basically the equivalent of a nukige without any H-scenes or fanservice at all. Imagine that. Just fluffy non-story connecting together scenes of girls telling you how much they love you for no reason. Wow. In the end I guess the only good thing to come out of the Sister Princess franchise was the image album which actually had some really good songs: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11335637 http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12996965 I guess there's a Sister Princess 2 which appears to be a huge upgrade from what little I've seen of it on Japan sites, but I think 1 may have poisoned it too much for me so I don't really care. Shirayuki, Mamoru and Chikage are all great characters though and really deserve to be in a better game/series than this.

Um. Anyone interested in joining up if this started up again? While I was here this was one of my favorite things from Fuwa and I really enjoyed it. I'd be more than happy to take over running it. I now have Steam and all the emulators so I can play anything we decide on. If people are interested I'm thinking instead of Genre we pick a Retro and Recent game based on themes like 'Good Story' 'Good Soundtrack' 'Good Characters' etc. Each time we'd pick one theme (IE: Good Story) and people would propose Retro and Recent games that come to mind when they think of that theme. Then in the discussion we'd talk about that specific point, rather than the game as a whole. Why was the story good? What parts of it did we enjoy the most? Etc. etc. I think this will be interesting for looking into what it is we like about games in general without needing to limit ourselves to a certain type of game. What do folks think?

I love this game to death. It was by far my favorite dungeon crawler on the PSP (which is saying something because the PSP had a lot). However, there is something important you need to understand before you get into it: This game is VERY GOOD if you are specifically looking for a Wizardry-like first person dungeon crawler. It is VERY NOT GOOD if you are just wanting an RPG with a good plot or whatever. This is a dungeon crawler, it is mean to keep you grinding in the dungeons for as long as possible with only a barebones plot to string you from dungeon to dungeon. The thrill of the game is finding tough monsters, finding awesome rare items and building an unstoppable team with a lot of diverse characters and classes. However if it's a dungeon crawler you want then this one is great. Why? Simply put it's one of the only dungeon crawlers I know of that gives you a clear and concise reason to grind. You're trying to collect enough of each monster to get their summon page, which requires 9 kills (except for bosses). If you make sure to get about 80% of the monsters on each floor in your book, you'll never be hurting for levels. It makes the progression in the game feel smooth and natural. You get to a new floor, you explore it while trying to collect the pages, by the time you've done that you should have explored the floor and should be a good level for the boss. Rinse and repeat. It's so good! No other Wizardry-like is quite this good at making you feel like the grind isn't a waste of time or isn't just to get your levels up. Plus the character designs are great. Yeah there's fanservice but I feel like it's a little more well done than Moe Chronicle or other fanservicy dungeon crawlers. Besides the super sexualized ones there are character costumes that are just really charming, and it's possible to have a very fashionably dressed party without showing too much skin. Anyway I'm currently playing this on the PSP so if anyone wants to discuss it more I'd love to talk about builds and characters and stuff.

Hi I'm back too. As of now. Things that happened in my life since I left: 1. Moved back to America and then across America from WA to IN 2. Got a job that works all the hours. All the hours. However there is no take home stress and it's doing something I love so I don't care and the money is good so I'm very content. 3. Got engaged and will soon be married. Girlfriend not only does not know much about anime but I think she just legitimately does not like non-child-oriented animated things (IE she loves Disney but hates Archer) and has only watched a few anime things to humor me. That said she is understanding of my interests and we share a lot of interests outside anime so it's fine. 4. Quit video games for good and then un-quit them. 5. Decided that I needed folks to talk about anime and Japanese games and VNs with after all and came back to Fuwanovel because this place is great.

If a timer/subtitle person isn't readily available I can make them myself, at least for a start. Hopefully if we get an ep or two out we can attract more people who want to work in the group and someone else will take over, but I found a pretty nice guide for getting the subtitles made so I'm confident I can make at least workable ones myself.

Is it alright to do something like this here? I figure a lot of people are already involved in VN TL groups so I might not get any interest, but honestly I didn't know any other community to even ask about this at. Basically, at my current job as an interpreter I need to be able to hear Japanese and spit it back out in English at natural speed. To get better at this I thought it would be both fun and educational to fansub anime, where I would need to listen to the dialogue and produce an accurate English version of it. At the same time, there are a lot of old classic anime that have been falling through the cracks for a very long time. Sometimes they get picked up, people do a few episodes and then drop them. Some of them just straight up have never been subbed. The first series I want to work on (I have the raws and will provide them to anyone who joins up) is Wonder Beat Scramble, created by Osamu Tezuka. I'd like to do other Tezuka stuff but let's get this done first and then see where we want to go from there. I also at the very least want to do the Studio Pierrot magical girl shows that haven't been done yet (Creamy Mami is done. Emi, Yumi and Persia have only ever had partial subs). I can get raws for those. Not sure about any other Tezuka stuff, I'll have to look around. I don't need you to have experience, I don't have any fansubbing experience so we can learn and grow together as a group. These series aren't exactly in high demand so we can take our time and work through them at our own pace. Perhaps as people notice our work we'll attract other workers who know more about how the process works and our quality can increase. Who knows? At any rate, I'm going to start translating Wonder Beat Scramble and once people sign up to help I'll start distributing the episodes and scripts around. What I need (don't all have to be different people): Subtitle File Creator: Someone who can turn my script into a subtitle file Editor: Someone who can look at my English and make sure it all makes sense Encoder: Someone who encodes the final file with the subtitles and makes sure the video is in the best quality it can be in (note that we'll be dealing with very old shows, so no one is expecting spectacular quality here) Quality Checker: Someone who watches the final product in it's entirity to make sure nothing is amiss Distributer: Someone who can either set up an IRC channel to distribute our stuff or run our torrents for us. Or both. Hopefully the person who does this will have a good idea of how to get anime fansubs out to the community effectively. I don't know what I'd like the group to be called... a few ideas I had were things like Retrovers, Retlovers, Retroverse, Unforgotten, Sands of Time, Precious Memories, I dunno guys we'll figure that out at some point. Anyway let me know. I apologize if Fuwa isn't the place to get this kind of thing started.