Toranth

I'm pretty sure the Japanese creators want to make money, too Even anime, manga, and light novels will drag on well past their expiration date (Dragonball GT, anyone?). VNs, however, don't, which is part of why I like them.

I didn't mean to say that all chuuni games are shallow, but that their philosophical issues are treated shallowly. "Sleeping powers awaken!" can make for an exciting climax and wonderful fun story, but it completely escapes any attempt at addressing the greys of the real world. And in many cases, that's the point. The real world isn't much fun, so we go to stories for excitement. Why bring the dull parts in with you? Of course, some of us like those dull parts. I thought Psycho-pass was a damned good anime, and it did a wonderful job of stressing many of the issues that could arise in that world. On the other hand, Aiyoku no Eustia smothered its critical philosophical issue in whiny angst, then didn't even have the protaganist make the critical choice in the end, anyway! And I meant to address that seperately from any complaints about common tropes or the like. I have no problem with a story that is built entirely out of common storylines and characters. In fact, if you are familiar with the Campbellian archetypes, it's hard NOT to see all the classical story elements everywhere. But if they are well done, and the characters well developed, and the world well thought out - you get an excellent product. I'd say the biggest thing holding back American comics and cartoons from matching up to the best Japanese ones is rather simple. In America, the stories are never allowed to end. Captain America will never stay dead forever, the Powerpuff Girls never grow up, etc. Whereas VNs are almost always limited in scope, giving a solid beginning, middle, and end. The discussion of Western content with chuuni-like elements is enough for an entire thread of its own. I do agree with many of your recommendations. Good stuff there. I'd suggest Larry Correia's stuff (especially Monster Hunters), too.

My only problem with your definition is that it produces a genre so large that it becomes almost meaningless. For example, you include Trouble @Vampire up there. But the main character in that game isn't really at the heart of things. His 'specialness' doesn't drive the story, any more than the MC's specialness in your average moeblob game. At the same time, you don't include Aiyoku no Eustia - a game almost pure chuuni. Both include melodrama and fighting and stuff, but the focus is very different The heart of the Chuuni genre is "Screw you ordinary guys, I'm special!" It needs to feature a seemingly or formerly ordinary guy that is actually special, and his specialness needs to be a driving factor in the storyline. Without that, you've just got a typical shonen/seinen story with fighting. Would you consider something like Hunter x Hunter to be chuuni? Aaaand this, I've really got to disagree with. I find that most chuuni games, including almost all on your lists, tend to be very shallow when it comes to philosophy. Sure, it may mention issues that adults tend to no longer consider, but they get no serious treatment. Take the classic ethic dilemma of the runaway trolley - Do you kill one, or allow 5 to die? There is no right or wrong answer, it is the reasoning behind the final choice that is meaningful. But in chuuni, the answer is "I awaken my sleeping powers and save everyone!!!" The reason chuuni type stories work is because they ARE fun - you get to be someone special, the world does reolve around you, and you do win the girl/save the world/beat the baddie. I just think that applying the term so broadly makes it hard to use in any meanful fashion (chuuni in Air? Really?)

Although the phone system in Steins;Gate was enough to get me to drop the game early, my personal hatred is reserved for Himemiko: Sengetsu. That game had normal choices (one true end, lots of bad ends format), but it also had click-able words in the dialogue. Clicking on each word caused a pop-up to appear with a definition of the term, like a in-game encyclopedia. However, clicking on the words was also a secret route flag. And they were neither indicated nor clickable in the backlog, so if you went past one, it was gone. So when you got stuck in a bad end, you had to not only change your choices, you had to go back through the ENTIRE GAME, including previous bad ends, to see if you'd missed any clickable terms. If you hadn't clicked on the right words, you were shunted into a bad end, with no indication of why. But not all clickable terms needed to clicked - just some. And again, no telling which ones. One of these days I intend to go back to Steins;Gate. If I ever encounter a system like Himemiko again, I will run screaming.