Trickay

Well Steins;Gate 0 come and Steins;gate 0 bienvenue Steins;gate 0 to steins;gate 0 FuwaSteins;Gate 0, Please have a Steins;Gate 0.
 
As i see, your lack of Steins;Gate has to be corrected in the fastest way. www 

In case Pulltop really did that, then it won't be matter much because NarKarma itself was all age VN in the first place, and Pulltop blunder was they did cut the H scenes for overseas release.

I think Sekai Project receives too much flak. People are quick to jump on an internet criticism bandwagon without knowing the full story behind things.
It's clear that their recent releases are of unusually low quality, but they also have an extensive portfolio of quality successful releases and are making motions to fix the ones that are not-so-quality. My primary concern is that they're very opaque and don't divulge information to people that have paid good money for their product until they're forced to.

http://otakuspirit.com/2018/04/why-ill-never-support-sekai-project-again/
So @Zenophilious posted this article in the Fuwaserver the other day and it describes a single person's experience with Sekai Project and its Grisaia Kickstarter. I thought it'd be a fun discussion to bring up everybody else's experience with them and what they think of them. Personally, I find them to be unprofessional with some of their releases and they have a plethora of problems that I've already described in a previous thread. Whether you're an SP fan and apologist, or a person who dislikes SP, leave what you think below and most importantly, have fun. 

Why did I click that link... once you see you cannot unsee... maybe links like this should expire after a day or two? 
 
I've been reading Grisaia, and I know others complain about the long common route but I'm really enjoying all the day to day stuff.
Plus I'm loving that the MC is not some weak moron but someone skilled and with attitude.

I completely agree with what you're saying Kyousuke. I'm also of a similar age (32) and there's no way I can discuss with others about my hobbies without being labelled as weird. That said I believe it's all about your environment and the people that surround you. During my first (and only) research assistant position I found that I could talk to colleagues about these things; although many of my colleagues at the time we're Chinese. Since I had to give up my ambition of a lectureship (due to an unplanned pregnancy) and move into the defence industry for a permanent job there's just no way I can discuss these hobbies with anyone anymore; and I find that unbelievably crushing. Like you said if it's football or rugby then there's conversation, everything else just raises eyebrows. 

^Amen to that (feel a bit sorry for you too, since we understand each other that kind of awkward situation, which is sooo unpleasant).
You are also right on finding the right environment with the right people, but is very luck based, at least to me, which to this day I wasn't able to find outside of the internet.

I completely agree with what you're saying Kyousuke. I'm also of a similar age (32) and there's no way I can discuss with others about my hobbies without being labelled as weird. That said I believe it's all about your environment and the people that surround you. During my first (and only) research assistant position I found that I could talk to colleagues about these things; although many of my colleagues at the time we're Chinese. Since I had to give up my ambition of a lectureship (due to an unplanned pregnancy) and move into the defence industry for a permanent job there's just no way I can discuss these hobbies with anyone anymore; and I find that unbelievably crushing. Like you said if it's football or rugby then there's conversation, everything else just raises eyebrows. 

I know that I'm going to derail from the main thread (sorry for doing this, Thyndd), but I really would like to ask @Clephas something about his post:
How is your friend living out his hobby/coexisting his otaku side with his family and his life in general?
The reason for my question is that, frankly speaking, I live in a country not that developed toward otaku stuff in general (the south regions, in which I live, are even more ignorant on this matter). As a result, most of the people here hide the fact of liking anime/manga or any videogame which is not soccer or FPS related (because here, if it's not soccer or a shooter game, everything else is "crap for children").
This holds extremely true for my generation and similar (I'm almost 30), which forced me to hide my hobby till this day. This goes without saying that is very stressful, and unable to show others my tastes without being finger pointed.

Oh man, this is going to cause such a long shitstorm, for what I apologize. Let's see, where to start...
A few months ago I came across a youtube video of a self-proclaimed japanese culture expert and divulgator psychologist. In this video he made a bunch of claims about japanese society and people who like japanese media (he was especifically referring to anime and manga, but due to the very similar trends and topics I consider it also applies to VNs) tending to be more "immature" (whatever that means, which I'll discuss later) and idealizing childhood, a nostalgic period to which they desperately want to go back. I'm not going to provide an actual link to the video for various reasons:
It's not even in English, so most of you wouldn't understand it anyway.
I don't know if the community guidelines in fuwanovel would even allow the publicity, and what's more, I don't have a reason to advertise a content I consider poor on so many levels.
He didn't provide any evidence for his claims in the form of any sociological study I mean, he's a psychologist... ehem so nothing there is worth more than your average middle-aged oji-san's opinion that you might find in the middle of the street.
For all these and much more, I'll try to give you a quick overview in a nutshell on his "arguments". It goes like this (warning: the amount of bullshit you will find here reaches toxic levels. Reader discretion is advised):
"Japanese society lives in a state of perpetual reverie and denial due to their defeat during WWII, which left them with a grave inferiority complex and the perception that they are at the mercy of EEUU. This caused a generalised depression that led to japanese people undergoing the loss of all sense of self-worth and autonomy, accepting being subjugated to EEUU like a kid is subjugated to their parent's commands."
"This reflects in japanese media in the form of a tendency for very young characters to which they can relate and the image of the adult like that mature person (otona), a fount of infinite wisdom, who follows blindly the role society assigns them and thus is a model for our young main characters."
"Westerners  who like japanese media tend to share this Peter Pan syndrome with japanese people. They are essentially manchildren that negate their age and responsabilites and take shelter in the world of japanese fiction, so well suited for them."
And that would be essentially it. To be honest, when I first watched his video I laughed it off and thought that this fucker just read too much Freud. It's the same kind of bullshit that you find in psycho-analysis, where you have a bunch of hypothesis with no evidence whatsoever that just sound somewhat appealing and you are told to believe because they came from the mind of a self-called intelligent person. I thought that most of us are way past that crap and quickly dismissed the topic.
And to the present day, I still think that it is bullshit. So why am I losing my time writing this? Well, you know that feeling when you learn a word that you never heard before, and thereafter you seem to hear the freaking word all the time? It's an effect of being more attentive to it. Likewise, I became more sensitive to this topic after watching that video, and since then I've been noticing an extended idea among people that indeed japanese media enthusiast, or "otakus", call it as you want, have a childish mentality. And you must be thinking... "wow, this dude discovered f***** America". Yeah right, it doesn't particularly come off as a surprise that there are a lot of prejudices against this hobby. The main reason I want to write about this is a little more subtle.
I've been noticing that the "manchild" epithet is given in a condescending way even among anime and manga fans (VN is such a niche genre that I think there is barely any room for it for the time being) to discredit other people's opinions and tastes on the subject. Wow, elitist being assholes, breaking news, I know. But you know, in spite of me being a really obstinate person, I also like to leave room for someone's arguments to change my mind or make me look at things from another angle. Plus, they say that there is no smoke without fire, so I would like to discuss how much reality there is to this what with it being a prejudice held not only by the unversed opinionated masses but even within the community itself.
First, let's address what it means to be "immature", "childish", a "childman". Definitions are always arbitrary and oftentimes confusing, so I always like to begin a discussion getting the definitions out of the way in the most clear way possible first. When I hear "childish" referred to a person, the word evoke the meaning of "person who share the common personality traits of most children" for me. And what would that be? Well, children tend to be carefree and selfish in nature, as a result of not yet knowing the hardships of life and not being aware of the consequences of their actions, for which they are not willing to accept any responsability, thus being dumped on their parents instead. By this definition, someone cannot be called "childish" on the only basis of their pastimes or passions. The gist of the question is whether there is or is not a correlation (not causation) between childish people and japanese popular media fans. And if there is, then it would mean that there are some features in this media that turn out to be appealing for this kind of people. This brings us back to the words of our good freudian psychologist and "japanese culture expert", whose statements I'll try to refute (at least those unrelated with WWII and all the nonsense not worth the effort).
He claims that immature people feel attracted to japanese media because of the prominence of young characters they can relate to. I'm not denying the fact that that prominence is very much real, though of course it also depends on the genre. What I think he's missing here are the actual reasons why and the themes these kind of works usually deal with. As for the reasons of this abundance of young characters, the obvious one is that most of these works are targeted at a young audience, while trying to make it enjoyable for all publics. It's important to keep in mind that anime and manga is, at least as a popular phenomenon, a relatively young one. Most of the fans are still young. But for me, the most relevant reason is embedded in the true nature of japanese society (and not all the crap he pulled out of his ass). If you pay attention, the most frequent period during which most anime and manga are set in is the last years of high-school. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, since it makes for a really handy narrative device. No matter where you are from, those ages are where you become the person you will be during all your life. It's a period of change, and also a period of difficult choices, your ACTUAL first difficult choices as a new-born adult. What you usually see in these works is not a bratty teenager without a care in the world that get away with that attitude at the end (something more frequent, incidentally, in american teenage fiction, if I'm allowed to say it). Instead, what it all usually comes down to is to learning to be critical with oneself, facing your responsibilities and becoming an overall responsible and decent person who will be productive when integrated to society. And this last part, this "integration to society" is so fundamental in the japanese mindset, that I believe that is the reason why we get so many school life related works. Japanese mentality is extremely communal: the well-being of the community comes first as a priority than your own interests. Every new piece to be integrated into this machine needs to be polished and have the social awareness that is expected from it. You tell me, how is this not contradictory with the childish mentality that I described above? Like, they are total opposites. I seriously doubt that childish people would enjoy most of these works where the reality of the world, the fact that you must accept your coming to age and face your responsabilities are thrown so blatantly to your face.
And that's pretty much everything I wanted to say. If you've made it this far, congratulations
I'm aware that asking for an opinion here might be like asking your grandma to confirm that you are the most handsome person in the country, but anyway, let's try to be critical about it and get to the bottom of this. I would love to read your thoughts on the topic. 

I haven't watched the anime, but from the comments I've read online, it's nothing compared to the visual novel. Sort of like the Grisaia anime, I guess.

I've just finished Rea's route. Boy, what a ride it has been. I've never felt this emotional since I last read Muv Luv Alternative; damn I even nearly teared up towards the end of the game. If Marie's route was epic, Rea's route was godly. Never in my whole vn reading experience had I ever witnessed such powerful battle scenes; it's truly a clash of the gods.
Dies Irae is very similar to Fate Stay Night in so many ways, the first being its battle royale theme and the second being its characters sharing similar traits: Ren wielding Marie is like Shirou wielding Saber; Kei is like Rin (the tsundere rival teaching the protagonist the basics and somehow ends up falling for him); Tubal Cain is like Berserker (the uncontrollable beast); Trifa is like Kirei (the fake priest); and Reinhard is like Gilgamesh (the guy who thinks he's almighty and all). Perhaps that's why I had such high expectations for this vn, so when I finished Kasumi's route, I couldn't help but feel disappointed, since it didn't feel like the full story was being told. Then I went on to Kei's route but there were still quite some things I couldn't quite understand. It wasn't until Marie's route that I started to feel that Dies Irae would be a 9/10 worthy type of vn (at least for me) and finishing Rea's route just a few minutes ago has pretty much solidified this feeling.
Words can't even describe how much I enjoyed reading Dies Irae - I think I may have a new outright 2nd favorite now.

Damn. You gave it the same rating as me in the end. Dies Irae is truly a masterpiece in VNs and everybody should at least play it to experience it and form their own opinions. The battles are fantastic, the scale of the story is engrossing, the characters are all fleshed out and really enjoyable to read, and the plot overall, while not the most complicated thing ever, is just so goddamn well executed. I wish I could gush about Dies for a while longer, but this isn't the place to do it.

Saya no Uta, Kikokugai, and Hanachirasu are really good short VNs to read.

At least in Family Project we didn't have this Diao-chan here XDDD - beware of the brain bleach XDDDDD. And yes, for Diao-chan he did use his usual tone (Hozuki like tone).

Building on top of Zalor's post, I can give a quick and dirty version of my time here. Granted, I don't remember dates all that much. 
 
I joined early on in Fuwanovel's history because i needed help fixing sound in Never7. I never fixed it. I think early on, I didn't care about Aaeru hosting pre-patched torrents because for me, it was easily the best way to get a VN. I didn't trust purchasing through Mangagamer or Jast USA and this was well before steam VNs, aside from random ones like Analogue: A Hate Story, were a thing. Anyway, I read Ever17 and loved it a lot so I began to pick up other VNs and take part in more discussions on the forums. I never delved heavily into VNs though and mostly stuck to anime and gaming discussions. Early on, though, I remember clashing with sanahtlig. I don't know what the hell I was fighting with him over but thats hardly unique to me. 
Someone then made, likely tay or ryoji, a terrible mistake and promoted me to a moderator with some others, like Down and Steve. At once, I got into a big fight with aaeru over hosting licensed content. I don't recall what the it was though, possibly Steins;Gate? Or something related to it This went directly against a rule that had been set up, that Fuwanovel would not host licensed games. Anyway, I was kind of a dickwaffle and wasn't very nice. The staff ended up splitting into two camps over the issue. I do recall Ryoji and myself were on one side with Aaeru and Steve on the other. Then Tay stepped in like the mighty God he is, and somehow solved the situation. I think we ended up making it a rule that no licensed content would be hosted by Fuwanovel, that it was to be strictly fan TLs. This would come back to haunt the site when Clannad and Grisaia got licensed.
Things chugged along for a bit, and I was quite active in doing nothing really. I do recall a spam war where suddenly everyone began posting AMA threads over and over. Your boi zakamutt was part of this if memory serves. By this point, aaeru's activity had begun falling off so Tay and Ryoji were left to deal with this situation. Ryoji favored the nuclear option of banning those involved. Tay wasn't too terribly eager to do so. I vaguely recall diving into the irc channel with him and talking the situation out. This marked the beginnings of the Coliseum of Chatter. Originally I think it was a single thread, and then a subforum, before it got split off into its own thing. Once again, Tay had achieved a middle ground. I think maybe one temp ban was handed out during all of this? 
Ryoji left the site, I don't remember the date but I remember it happening pretty vividly. Wasn't great. To try and bridge the gap, I volunteered to take the spot, never intending to actually keep it for a long amount of time. I admit, it was nice to finally be a higher rank than Steve, who was my nemesis on the site. I really didn't do much different than what I had been doing as a mod. I didn't feel it was my place to make any structural changes to the website so I tried to avoid doing anything major like that. The only thing I remember doing as an admin was spending 3 hours talking to steve in his cursed teamspeak channel to convince him that posting pictures of naked lolis wasn't great, and even posting p. risque ones could get people in trouble. Finally, after much talking, I finally convinced him to put them in spoiler tags and not post naked lolis. As the compromise, I went in and placed many of his pictures in spoiler tags to save him the effort. It was a dark, loli filled day for me, one I never want to repeat. 
Then the website blew up, thanks to aaeru pirating the software for the site. It was down for quite some time, nayleen stepped in and helped Tay get things back up. aaeru was long gone by this point, which complicated matters quite a bit. Regardless, Nay and Tay got things back up and running. I stepped down from the staff since I felt rather out of place, not knowing how to really help anymore. My activity declined somewhat around this time too, until Tay had a situation arise and had to leave for a while. As a result, Cybersteel took over the show and Steve was promoted to admin. Yeah... that was something. He asked me to come back as a moderator, thus beginning the meme of solidbatman joining and quitting the staff daily. 
I don't remember when it was exactly, that Clannad and Grisaia got licensed. Tay may have still been hanging around at this time? There was a huge debate over whether or not Fuwanovel should continue hosting those two VNs. I argued that they ought to be taken down as they were no longer fanTLs and a legitimate way of purchasing them was now available. Steve, and many others argued that because the official releases had a different translation, they technically were not the same and should be left up. The second part of their argument dealt with purchasing them from other countries (which as steam releases made little sense to me but not much about the VN community and culture does).  

They ended up being removed which marked the beginning of the end of hosting torrents of fanTLs on the website. Back to Steve's adminship. I ended up leaving the staff again shortly after when I realized I was only placed on the staff for optics. Steve, if memory serves which it may not as I am biased, really didn't listen to anyone and did whatever he really wanted to do. Admirable maybe, but I was not really in the mood to work under that knowing nothing I said or did would matter. In true Steve fashion, he argued with me for a couple hours trying to get me to stay on. Didn't work. 
Then Tay showed back up. What he managed to do still amazes me. He took down the torrents and kept Fuwanovel alive. I honestly have no idea how he managed to do this. Some members did leave over this and begin their own new fuwanovel thingy that does the same thing the old fuwanovel did. But the core of this site stayed intact. VNTS was revived by Zakamutt and Tay, and later Decay, who brought it into their current format. With the removal of torrents, Fuwanovel gained some legitimacy within the commercial VN industry. I've no doubt some fan translators still hate fuwanovel for hosting the pre-patched torrents but companies were willing to interact with Fuwanovel after the removal. 
FuwaReviews became a thing, and to be honest, thats all I cared about once we got it going. Ryechu did good work building some contacts within the industry to gain reviewers some review copies. I got into a twitter tiff with the Lupiesoft guy because I gave his shitty VN a low score after he gave us a review copy (the god damn game barely ran). I wrote the infamous Little Busters! review. The reaction was amazing. Doing FuwaReviews stuff was some of the most fun I think I had on this website. Regardless, with FuwaReviews, my interest in other parts of the site died off, and I no longer followed the happenings closely as they didn't concern me. Then I left all together for about 2 years before coming back in the past week due to boredom. 

So there is my 150% self-centered history of Fuwanovel. I admit its self-centered because all I really can remember is stuff I was involved with. Like I said before, I typically stayed out of VN discussions unless it was in regards to their distribution. 

Relevent comment from nay the bae about Steve: 
 

That's right I've finally made it to 2000 posts and it's no different than when I made it to 1000 or 500 I suppose, Fuwa has been like a second home to me for a long while and even though I'm nowhere near as active as I used to be back in the day (it shows by how long it took me to get here  ) I still consider it special even if I don't always agree with everything that surrounds it.
 
I guess you can ask me things and I may or may not answer them 
 
T'was here that I also met a lot of people whom I consider friends and that I enjoy talking to:
@VirginSmasher The moege hater himself that I've known for quite a while now and even though he's always right  we don't always agree 
@HMN IEIIIII! 
@Kiriririri The moebuta loli itself 
@Kaguya The one good mod 
@Zakamutt The softcore elitist 
@Asonn The salty dutchman 
@Kawasumi Maddie the keeper of smiles 
@madvanced No U (Wholesome Noel) 
@AaronIsCrunchy & @Forgetful Frank The kawaii Brit and the disgustingly perverted Brit ( Kind of like the beauty and the beast) 
@Chewy The Aussie 
@Arcadeotic Yet another one of the ones I met long ago and whom I run FuwaSpammers with 
 
I could sit here and name people all day but  I won't do that partially because I wasn't sure I'd make this post in the first place but as it stands I was convinced to do it anyway.
 
Thank you everyone for being around and making the place livelier not only here but on our server as well.
 
I will provide the link to the server in case more Fuwa brothers wish to join us :  https://discord.gg/xN5Sakv
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
@Dergonu
 
 

Thank you so much Dergonu for mentioning Kikokugai, I was amazed at how well the world was explained for such a short VN. For the two evenings I spent reading Kikokugai the story certainly packed a punch!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Thyndd, like you I agree that without fully reading Extra/Unlimited the reader wouldn't be fully invested into the dialogue of Alternative; and therefore not appreciate the overall message.
I did consider changing another favourite on VNDB to 9.9 to make MLA sit at the top in my list as it was a truly wonderful reading experience... except the two sleepless nights! 

It's not really "in the future", since I already started working on something. It's a cute little RPG that's simply perfect for fans of lighthearted, vanilla stories where totally nothing bad happens to main characters.
No, of course it isn't. Playing it will result in severe emotional trauma. You have been warned. ^^
That aside, we are considering moving our main info/updates/feedback place somewhere else. Due to Fuwa anti-piracy rules this thread's usefulness is quite limited, since we can't ask for any files that we would need for further compatibility testing and the like. I'm not sure about discussing how to mess around with that Chinese DLC either. Actually, it's highly questionable if the patch itself should be even posted here to begin with... >_>
Anyway, don't be surprised if this thread gets abandoned/locked in the near future. I'll post links to a new place (Reddit?) in the OP if that happens.

@Thyndd:
 

MuvLuv Alternative finished!
  Gosh, what a rollercoaster it's been. It's gonna be hard to put into words, and the current state of the forums doesn't help either 
Actually I think I'll edit this post when it's back to normal. Writing like this is torture.
EDIT:
Ok, here we go! 
Well, and that's it. And as always, thank you all so much for being there to exchange thoughts and impressions. It definitely makes this all the more enjoyable 
I think I'll be reading Sharin no Kuni next for a change of pace. I feel like reading something lighter now, after all the info dumping that has MLA 

I love April's Fool

you can use this one https://ankiweb.net/.../info/523650169 and this one https://ankiweb.net/...o/1668783345 to start, N5 and 4

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

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

Here are the categories of resources presented:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practice Material

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

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

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

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

I'm glad I grabbed this Dergonu, I just couldn't put it down this evening. I've not finished it yet but she's 60% if you know what I mean.