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Darklord Rooke

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  1. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Books: Honor Harrington Series   
    Yes, I have indeed decided to add books to my regular posts, mostly due to Rooke's suggestion.  Understand, if you think I've read a lot of VNs... that is nothing in comparison to the number of books I've read over the twenty-eight years since I learned to read.  That number is somewhere in the tens of thousands... and one of the reasons I can be so intolerant when it comes to the excessive reliance on conventions in VNs, lol. 
    Honor Harrington
    Honor Harrington is both a character and a series written by David Weber, one of the more famous science fiction authors out there.  He tends to write military sci-fi, mostly, and in a different way from Ringo (Ringo being the most famous name in military sci-fi), he has reshaped the way I saw science-fiction to some extent. 
    Honor, in the book On Basilisk Station, is the captain of a light cruiser named Fearless that has been exiled to the hardship post/dumping ground of her star nation's holdings for the crime of being an incidental part of the humiliation of one of her more well-connected superiors.  Throughout the series - up until this point (there are over twelve books now, and Harrington is both older and wiser), Harrington in many ways embodies all the military holds up as an ideal.  She is courageous, intelligent, aware of her duty, and she has a knack for ending up in the worst positions you could imagine (both politically and militarily).  Her character, over the course of the series, advances from a somewhat immature young officer to a wise woman who is all to0 aware of the cost of doing her duty.  She and her treecat (an alien empathic animal that occasionally forms bonds with humans) survive some of the worst hells, psychological and physical, that you could imagine existing in the mortal universe... and endure the loss of those who don't.
    Now, a good military sci-fi series is no good without an enemy empire to deal with... and in this one, it is the People's Republic of Haven, a massive interstellar star nation with an apparently overwhelming advantage in numbers... but an economy that is going down the drain to the welfare state and the deliberate sabotage of the education system by the political elites (sounds kind of like a combination of democratic socialism for the first and Republican education policy for the latter, lol).  In Haven, over two thirds of the population is on the Dole, the name for their welfare system which basically hands out a living allowance to everyone who wants it... in exchange for making the 'legislature' and all other government positions hereditary some three centuries before.  Unfortunately, this has caused a slow but accelerating decay in the system as a whole, as entire generations grow up with the deliberately castrated education system and no incentive to try to rise above their peers.  This has led Haven to a very simple - and short-term - strategy... conquer neighbors, gut their economies to feed the worthless mouths of the mob, then include them in the Dole... rinse and repeat, ever expanding outward.  Unfortunately for Honor's homeland, Manticore, it has been slated as the next morsel to go down the throats of the faceless masses, and the antiquated but massive navy of the 'Peeps' is planning to make itself the fork.
    The first few novels are basically preliminaries to the outbreak of open war (albeit bloody ones), where Honor finds herself in some really nasty situations as she does her duty and in the process incidentally foils the best-laid plans of the other side. 
    One thing to keep in mind is that warships in the Honorverse tend to have hundreds to thousands of crewmen... meaning that every breach of the hull can kill dozens, further meaning that even in a 'minor confrontation' dozens to hundreds will die... and Honor rarely gets into 'minor confrontations'.  The guilt of a commander that loses men to the enemy is an important theme throughout the series, though not a primary one. 
    Manticore, Honor's homeland, is a small three-planet, two-system star nation at the beginning, ruled by a constitutional monarchy, complete with a House of Lords and a House of Commons... Generally speaking, the position of the monarch is kind of similar to the current one of the Queen of England, both in law and substance... in other words, while she has very little actual direct authority by law, her influence is immensely strong, both as a symbol and as an individual.  The House of Lords, which was basically formed by ennobled 'original' colonists who were there before the plague that caused them to bring in large numbers in a second wave, is supposed to act as a restraint on the elected House of Commons, and generally the Prime Minister is chosen from amongst its members.  Manticore is probably the most advanced nation in the entire human-ruled galaxy (outside of genetics, which is Beowulf's and Mesa's specialty), at least partially because their prime system is at a wormhole junction that allows a much faster movement from one end of the ginormous Solarian Union to the other.  This gives them massive amounts of money and direct access to technology from other worlds that has let them build up a huge advantage in relative terms over the People's Republic, which is an issue that is important throughout much of the series.  In many ways, it is easy to think of Manticore as a futuristic version of the British Empire without the colonialist tendencies and racial arrogance.
    Throughout the series, characters on the 'side of good' are put in situations that are pure hell, forced to make hard decisions, and they frequently live or die by those decisions, with Honor always at the forefront.  The series as a whole is really well-written... with realistic-feeling antagonists and easy to love characters on both sides of the war (Theisman from the second book comes to mind for the People's Republic), as well as people that are truly worthy of hate and contempt on both sides.  The more serious elements are broken up by the humorous interactions of Honor, her subordinates, and her friends, and there are many times throughout the series when big issues of morality are brought to the forefront (such as the morality of gene-manipulation, stating a big one). 
    If there is one thing you'll notice about any David Weber book... it is that he manages to create characters that make you want to cheer them on... even on the other side.  He rarely, if ever produces a side of one of his books' wars that doesn't have people that are good despite the system they work within, and even the best of his people - including Honor herself - have their moments when they show the baseness of human nature's darker side.  Honor is the type that leashes her dark side with duty and unleashes it on the enemies of her people... but that dark side definitely exists, chained beneath the surface (as is seen rather clearly in the second and fourth books). 
    My conclusion about this series - which I've reread four times - is that I can honestly recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and space operas... but for people who can't handle complexity - both of scenario and of moral/philosophical issues - they will probably have difficulty with it.  The Honorverse is still going strong, currently... though it has several anthologies and two side-series (one based in the early days of Manticore and another focused on characters involved in the anti-slavery movement).  Honor herself hasn't been sidelined... but the story has evolved beyond that small portion of space that contains Haven and Manticore, meaning that it is not so focused around her anymore. 
  2. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from Eclipsed for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  3. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Kenseiki Alpha Ride: Final   
    Mmm... having finished the final path, my conclusion is pretty clear... This is a game that had a lot of potential that was primarily screwed up by how poorly executed certain game mechanics were and the way they did the two protagonists.  In my previous posts, I already went over my feelings on the two initial paths and their protagonists, so I'll leave that where it is and move on to the third path.
    The third path - the true path - basically shifts gears completely, drastically altering the series of events immediately after Kai and Shizuma clash mech to mech for the first time.  This is partially because of certain revelations that occur immediately before, and things progress rapidly to a revelation of the people hidden backstage... and the traditional 'lets go kill the bastards who have been manipulating us!' last ride down the mouth of hell.  To be honest, after the mess they made of the other two paths, it was really hard to get up any enthusiasm whatsoever.  Kai's path felt staid and forced, whereas Shizuma's path was... unusual but horribly painful to play through, primarily because of Shizuma himself. 
    Shizuma actually becoming a human being is probably the best thing about the third path.  He drops the paranoia and most of the angst, and he actually become something approaching psychologically stable.  If he'd managed to drop into that mode in his own path at some point, I probably would have been more forgiving, lol. 
    Other than that... Kai never does really grow that much.  He remains a two-dimensional prop with a fondness for airheads (all three of the heroines are airheads or exceedingly naive in some way).  He spouts formulaic phrase after formulaic phrase, right through to the conclusion.  It doesn't help that the manipulators behind the scenes are also less than inspiring, once the initial emotional release is achieved. 
    My final conclusion on the series canon issue is that one or the other is canonical but they can't coexist with the inconsistencies obviously present.  Chronologically, Kenseiki would have had to have happened after Yumina but before Corona.  Unfortunately, certain events in Corona make that impossible, so I had to just give up, in the end, on figuring out whether Eternal intended any of the series to have a true chronological consistency.
    Also, the difficulty spike near the end of the game is a bit ridiculous, though I was still able to get through it by picking off enemies at the edges until I'd isolated the more annoying ones... that and strategically making certain my people with support skill-blocking skills were available to all the other characters at all times to deal with the really nasty support skills the bosses tended to have.
    This is also true of Corona, in a way... There is a huge difficulty spike near the end of that one that makes it virtually impossible to achieve victory without abusing the protagonist/redhead/Corona combo to blast away the bosses' barriers. 
    My final conclusion about the game as a whole?  It would have been much, much better if they had made it consistent with the series' other games and had fixed the leveling so that all the characters would level together (I loathe the grinding that is inevitably required in srpgs where you have lots of characters who level individually).  I also think it would have been better if they had really, truly made using Stigma and Alpharia a 'good thing', as they are both as weak as kittens, except for their support skills... and as mechs combined with their respective protagonists, they actually make Shizuma and Kai a little weaker, in some ways.  The sword-people proved useful throughout the game, though the fact that some of the best party-attack skills are on them, so having them constantly equipped frequently felt wasteful.  Story-wise... Kai's path was tolerable, Shizuma's path was painful, and the third path was good... but that just means they made the first three fourths of the game into a slogfest, which is a huge downer.  Giving the sub-heroines their own unique paths was a good choice, as it gave them a chance to be distinct from one another.  Unfortunately, the fact that the third path makes it all irrelevant kind of kills the fun, doesn't it?
  4. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from Bolverk for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  5. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from Mr Poltroon for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  6. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from Darbury for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  7. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from LinovaA for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  8. Like
    Darklord Rooke got a reaction from Narcosis for a blog entry, News   
    I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
    I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
    Technology:
    'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
    No thank you, I’ll walk.
    More technology:
    ‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
    Politics:
    ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
    Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
     
    Social Issues:
    'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
    Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
    Health:
    A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
    World news:
    ‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
    Entertainment:
    'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
    Feel Good:
    And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
    Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?
  9. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Oh, The (Tricky) Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 2 of ∞)   
    This blog is all about owning my mistakes and putting them on public display, so let’s do this. And yeah, I knew this one was going to come back and bite me in the ass. This was my albatross. This was my giant ass-biting albatross.
    The great “tricky” debacle of 2015
    So there’s this word that shows up in the English translation of Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort. If you’ve read it, you might have noticed it once or twice.
    “Tricky.”
    Umi, the main heroine, falls back on this word a lot to describe the protagonist. She uses it when he’s being nice. And when he’s being a jerk. And when he’s chewing food. And any other opportunity she can think of. Basically, I think she gets paid 100 yen every time she manages to work that word into a sentence. And let me tell you: girl is pulling down bank.
    Of course, this is a translation, so she’s not actually saying “tricky.” She’s saying something similar in Japanese. And therein lies a tale of woe and sorrow.
    The backstory
    But let’s rewind a bit first.
    When I came aboard the KoiRizo team, it was to edit a single route: Nagisa’s. Makes sense — I was a first-time VN editor, and Nagisa’s route was the shortest in the game. Moreover, it was an unlockable, which meant that comparatively few people would end up reading it. Other editors were already hacking away at most of the remaining routes anyway, so that was all fine by me.
    As I worked my way through Nagisa’s scripts, I saw the word “tricky” pop up once or twice in Umi’s dialogue as a personal insult and it just seemed ... odd to me. Tough math problems are tricky. Opening a stubborn jar of peanut butter is tricky. People? Less so. I’m an editor, though, not a translator, so I did what I was supposed to do: flagged it for TLC review, left a comment with my concerns, edited the line as best I could, then moved along. The translator on the project had made it clear he wouldn’t be reviewing any edits until all the routes were finished being edited, so that’s about all I could do at the time.
    When I finished cleaning up Nagisa’s route, I was asked if I wouldn’t mind tackling Shiori’s scripts as well, which no other editor had gotten around to yet. “Sure,” I said, and set about tidying that up as well. The word “tricky” popped up a couple more times, so I did the same thing: flagged it, reiterated my concerns, then kept on editing.
    I finished Shiori, and was asked if I’d pick up the common route and Umi’s route; the editing on both of these had apparently stalled. Okay, what had started out as a quickie project for me was slowly turning into something much more time-consuming. I could see that. But I was still having fun, so I agreed. I started with the common route, where Umi has more screen time, which meant I started seeing the word “tricky” a little more often.
    And I started to worry.
    I flagged it, left a comment along the lines of “See my earlier notes on tricky,” and kept editing. I was determined not to get hung up on one silly word. It was becoming clear that this was sort of a catchphrase word for Umi, and I didn’t want to change the translation in my scripts if all the other editors’ scripts were keeping it as is. It’d be like if a screenwriter on The Simpsons decided that “D’oh!” sounded dumb, so Homer should say “Ooops!” instead — but only on the episodes he/she worked on.
    Anyway, I finished the common route and moved onto Umi’s. And lo, I gazed into a bottomless abyss of trickiness.

    You sly dumbass, you.
    Now let’s talk about the actual word. In Japanese, it’s “ずるい” — “zurui.” And, true to its definition, zurui’s a tricky word to pin down.
    It’s often translated as “unfair.” (Or so I’ve been told. Again, I’m an editor, not a translator. I took a Japanese class or two a few years back, so I have a basic familiarity with the rudiments of grammar and vocabulary. I’m good for: “Hello, I only speak a little Japanese. Sorry! What time is it? Where is the train? I am a very cute peach.” And that’s about it.) But there’s a little more nuance to it than that. Getting cancer is unfair. Having your advisor take credit for your thesis is unfair. “Zurui” implies a level of deviousness, impishness, slyness, craftiness, and yes, even trickiness. Someone who’s being “zurui” knows they’re getting away with something — and they’re okay with that.
    Moreover, it has a secondary meaning of being miserly, which is something that definitely applies to Soutarou, the protagonist of KoiRizo. I have to imagine that wordplay was not lost on the writers ... or the characters.
    There’s no one good English word to capture all those layers of meaning. When Umi uses this word to describe the protagonist in KoiRizo, it’s clear from context that her emotional shading varies from line to line. Sometimes she’s straight-up pissed at him and is telling him off: “You jackass.” Other times, she’s more of a late-game tsundere and says it playfully, even affectionately: “You sly dog you.” But she uses the same Japanese word every single time. Sometimes she’ll even say it six or seven times in a row without taking a breath.
    “Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. ZURUI!”
    It was her catchphrase. And in pretty much every instance, it had been translated as “tricky.”
    If the word only appeared once or twice in KoiRizo, I could have swapped in the contextually appropriate English replacements and been done with it. (I actually did this in a handful of places throughout the VN, usually when it was clear she was at one extreme of the word or the other.) But given how often it showed up, I felt somehow obligated to honor authorial intent. This was Umi’s pet phrase for this guy she’d fallen in love with. At one point, I think she even uses it as all the parts of speech in a single sentence. If I started changing “zurui” to different words every time, she’d lose a fairly important character quirk.
    After looking at all the options, the translator’s choice of “tricky” started seeming like it wasn’t a half-bad compromise after all. It got across that Umi thought the protag was dealing from the bottom of the emotional deck, but it also had a playful, teasing quality. It was never the best word in any particular instance, but it seemed like it might be flexible enough to be just sorta kinda okay in all instances.
    That argument makes sense, right? I thought so at the time, anyway. And so I left “tricky” as it was.
    Boy, was I wrong.

    Mea culpa
    I overthought it, plain and simple. I forgot my personal rule of writing and editing: Make the journey as frictionless for the readers as possible. Don’t let them get snagged on odd phrasings or slightly off words. Keep them immersed in the story.
    I’d forgotten how jarring that “tricky” word seemed those first few times I saw it in translation. As the months passed, some sort of editing Stockholm Syndrome set in and I actually started thinking it might be an acceptable option.
    In short, I messed up.
    When I read Umineko for the first time, Battler’s use (and abuse) of the word “useless” seemed so ill-fitting to me in English prose that I almost gave up reading the VN right then and there. But now, I sort of understand how the Witch Hunt team might have, over time, come to see this ungainly adjective as the best compromise for their main character’s catchphrase. It doesn’t make me like it much more, but I can see how they ended up there. (But don’t get me started on “turn the chessboard over” vs. “turn the chessboard around.” The latter works; the former leaves you with a bunch of chess pieces on the ground.)
    So here's the deal: It doesn’t matter that I had to make literally hundreds of judgment calls like this over the course of editing KoiRizo — what to do with Yuuhi’s numerous nicknames for the protagonist, as just one example — and 99% of them turned out okay (I hope).
    What matters is there’s a big lump of tricky sitting in the middle of the visual novel. And it doesn't work.
    I signed off on it. And I take full responsibility for that.
    So what to do? Not much, to be honest. It’s one of those things I’d love to revisit if given the chance, but a 2.0 KoiRizo patch seems unlikely at this time. MDZ keeps his own counsel, but he seems to have moved onto other pursuits.
    And that, as they say, is that.
    Postscript
    As I mentioned, the original intent of this blog was to put a spotlight on my many missteps as a first-time VN editor. That hasn’t changed. I might also try to throw in some helpful life advice from time to time, but I’m mainly happy to let my blunders serve as good object lessons for other aspiring editors.
    That means you should feel free to discuss any boneheaded decisions you think I might have made. Odds are I’ll own up to them. I've got a very thick skin, after all. I just ask two things:
    1. This blog is about editing. If you have issues with someone’s translation choices, I kindly ask that you take it elsewhere. I hear Fuwa has really nice forums for that sort of thing, y'know? But if you have issues with how I edited someone's translation, then bring it on.
    2. Please don’t be a giant pixelated dick about it. No one likes a pixel pick.

  10. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Kenseiki Alpha Ride Part 1: Progress report   
    Due to work and school, I haven't been able to progress as much as I would have liked with this VN, but I have gotten moderately far, so I'll give you a bit of an update on my experiences.
    Gameplay Comments
    First, the gameplay... this is a straight strategy rpg in format, but it does have a few twists.  First, the characters known as 'mech-people' and 'sword-people' can become what their name is... literally becoming a mech or a sword, through their pact with a particular character.  In the case of the mech-people, this not only creates a more powerful unit to stand on the field, it also extends their attack range, making them more effective on the battlefield, both offensively and defensively (though at the cost of skills the mech can use being lower level and fewer in number than the characters in question).  In opposition, the sword-people directly enhance the stats of their partner, giving them wider movement range, more powerful attacks, stronger defenses, etc.  When joined with someone, both sides gain a precise fraction of the experience they would have otherwise gained (in the case of the Kai/Alfaria/Beldadia combo It gets split three ways, for instance).  This has some advantages and more disadvantages.  The advantage is both characters can get experience from killing enemies... but this advantage is weakened significantly by the fact that characters that join in a group combo generally get more experience than the two joined characters, making it a trade-off for grinding. 
    Speaking of grinding... this game's experience-gaining is a huge pain in the butt, not the least of which because the enemies do massive level jumps (think two to five levels per battle), which makes it a serious pain to keep up, since your levels don't gain fast enough to make leveling anything other than a grind (you can replay any battle at any time on the world map).  Another huge downside of this game... Alfaria is pathetically weak when not transformed, but Kai is actually more powerful on foot, at least midway through the game.  This makes using the mechform usually not worth it for these two, except for the enhanced hp, but it does make it necessary, because Alfaria dying is usually a game over.
    Story and Characters
    So far, I'm still on Kai's side of the story, so I think it is going to be a while before I switch over to Shizuma.
    I'm going to be blunt... Alfaria feels a lot like a weaker, more naive version of Corona from Corona.  She's basically a little kid in an adult's body, with a little kid's thought patterns.  This is understandable in the context of the story, but it can be pretty annoying.  Kai is pretty much your typical rpg protagonist... right down to the naivete and impulsiveness.  To be honest, that irritated the hell out of me at first, though it has subsided somewhat as the story goes on (though he still has bursts of insanity where he does something unbelievably stupid).  I chose Beldadia as my first playthrough heroine, and she is fairly interesting, not to mention she is a returning character from Yumina and Corona, a heroine for the first time in this one.  I thought about spoiling her here, but lets just say that this VN puts her more in the spotlight this time around and let it go at that.
    The story in this VN is actually pretty good, in typical VN fashion... why do I say typical?  Because in many ways, this story reminds me of why I generally go to VN hybrids more than actual srpgs and rpgs nowadays.  Why?  It is pretty simple... no taboo subjects.  The story is dark, it is violent, and the characters make mistakes that actually get people killed in large numbers.  Today's jrpgs tend to avoid things like death, except in the abstract, and as a result, their stories tend to... suck.  Yes, I said it.  Modern jrpgs suck donkey tits.  The rare exceptions just prove the rule, rather than proving it wrong. 
    That said, I don't know if I approve of them putting multiple protagonists in this story, especially considering the number of times the two protagonists end up clashing (it kind of  feels like they are ruining the plot, to me).  I'll have to see what it is like when I get to Shizuma's part before I decide if I can forgive them for committing the cardinal sin of a serious VN. 
    Well, that's it for now... cheers!
  11. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Save the Visual Novels! Eat the Whales!   
    How do you eat an entire whale? One bite at a time. Preferably with Cholula.
    How do you edit/translate/whatever a visual novel? One line at a time. Preferably with bourbon.
    Whether you’re a fan of the final product or not, one of the things that impresses me most about MDZ’s fan translation of Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort is that it got released, period. As in, if you were so inclined, you could download the installer right now, patch the original Japanese game, and go play the thing on your new-fangled Windows Pee-Cee. No demos, no one-route partial patches. The whole damned VN in English, finished on schedule and out there in the world.
    The project didn’t stall. It didn’t wind up in no-updates-in-six-months-but-we-think-they’re-still-working-on-it hell. It didn’t climb into that white panel van with Little Busters EX, never to be heard from again. The nice man was lying to you, Little Busters EX — there were no cute little puppies in the back. What were you thinking?!
    The KoiRizo team did nothing particularly special to make this happen. We just ate the whale one bite at a time.
    The rhythm method
    By his own account, MDZ worked very methodically on the project, spending an average of 30 minutes every day translating scripts into English. Not when he felt like it. Not when inspiration struck. Not when enough people harassed him with all-caps emails asking why the HELL hadn’t there been any progress updates on the KoiRizo tracker lately. He made it an expected part of his routine, like brushing his teeth or eating dinner. He scheduled regular translation sessions between classes or before heading out in the morning.
    He did a little bit. Every. Single. Day.
    There’s a word for that: consistency. That’s what gets things done in the real world, not 48-hour marathons every random.randint(1,6) weekends fueled by Red Bull, Hot Pockets, and intense self-loathing. Consistency keeps you from getting burned out. Consistency lets you make reasonable schedules and estimates, then stick to them. Consistency is like goddamned black magic.
    Over the course of the project, MDZ had consistency in spades. If he can maintain that approach to life, I have a feeling he’ll be successful at whatever he puts his mind to after college.
    When I came on board as an editor, I kept a somewhat similar schedule. I resolved to set aside my commuting time each workday for editing. And so for 40 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the evening, Monday through Friday, I’d park my butt in a train seat, break out my laptop, and just edit.
    Weekdays were reserved for my family. If you’re married with kids, you know there is no such thing as free time on weekends. If you’re not married and don’t have kids, please tell me what the outside world is like. I hear they came out with a PlayStation 2? That’s gotta be pretty awesome.
    Anyway, that’s what I ended up doing. Edit every single workday. For six months. Until it was done.
    (Six months? That long to edit a medium-length visual novel? Yeah, that long. KoiRizo weighs in at 36,000+ lines. Over six months, that works out to about 1,400 lines a week, or 210 lines per hour. That’s an edited line every 17 seconds or so, with most of the lines needing substantial polishing/rewriting. I have no idea what pace other VN editors work at, but I felt like this was one I could maintain over the long haul. Call it the distance runner’s lope.)

    Special topics in calamity physics
    So why all this rambling about whales and consistency? Because I just got back from vacation a few days ago and I’ve been surprised at how long it’s taken me to get my head back into the various projects I’ve been working on (or even writing this blog). And then I got to wondering how often something small like that snowballs into a stalled or even failed project. A missed day turns into a skipped week turns into a skipped month turns into a dead translation.
    Which then got me thinking about the coefficient of friction.
    It’s basic physics, which I excelled at (failing repeatedly). In layman’s terms, it’s a ratio (μ) that gives you a sense how much force two surfaces exert on each other and, therefore, how much force you need to exert to get something moving from a dead stop. Wooden block on ice? Low coefficient of friction. Wooden block on shag carpet? High coefficient of friction ... and a senseless crime against tasteful décor. Once you overcome that initial friction, it takes comparatively little force to keep an object in motion.
    I can easily imagine there’s a coefficient of friction between us and our work, some quantifiable level of resistance that needs be overcome before we get our asses in gear and be productive. And unlike the one in Physics 101, which is constant for any two materials, this one is different every single day. It depends on a bunch of different factors: how interested we are in our projects, how appreciated we feel, what other projects we’ve got going on at the same time, how much sleep we’ve gotten, what else is going on in our lives, whether or not the Mets are currently in the World Series, etc.
    Let’s call it the coefficient of slackitude.
    Once we get started on a project and make it part of our everyday routine, we can largely ignore this number. We’ve overcome the initial slackitude and, with moderate effort, can keep things rolling along fairly smoothly. But each time we let things coast to a stop, even for a few days, we’ve got to overcome the slackitude all over again. And since that value is variable, it might be much harder the second time around. In fact, it probably will be.
    Eventually, we’ll fail to do so. And our project will die.
    The takeaway
    So other than the fact that I had no business being anywhere near a physics classroom, what can we take away from my incoherent ramblings? A couple things:
    The easiest way to make sure your project gets finished is to stick to a regular schedule. Eat the whale a little at a time — every day if you can. Minimize the gaps. Avoid having to face off against that nasty coefficient of slackitude more than once. The easiest way to make sure your project gets started at all is to pick a time when that coefficient of slackitude is low — when you’re excited by the prospect, when you’re well-rested, when you have relatively few competing interests. When you can focus. Use that time to build your momentum, so when your interest wanes or real life intrudes — it always does and it always will — the project is so embedded in your routine that you can just ride it out. We need more finished translations in the world. So pull up a chair and eat your whale. Do it for your team. Do it for yourself. Do it for poor Little Busters EX, drugged and ball-gagged in a basement somewhere, forever wondering when it’ll finally get to see the puppies.
  12. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Ikusa Megami series... my thoughts   
    The Ikusa Megami series is easily one of the best rpg series out there, as far as plot goes, including the more than two hundred jrpgs I played during my younger years.  I'm saying this right off the bat, simply because it needs to be said.  Ikusa Megami Zero is an example of the best of what can be done when a visual novel is fused with a traditional turn-based jrpg, and Verita is a nice sequel to it.  I frankly consider Ikusa Megami Zero to be right up there with Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VI, Xenogears, and Suikoden 2 as a member of that rarefied group in terms of plot, and that is coming from someone jaded by more than twenty years playing such games.
    Sadly, it is unlikely most people over here will even give it a chance if it does come over here... and the reason is fairly simple... sex.  Now, there are always people who defend or attack sexual content based on morality or the lack of it... but to be honest, I'm not interested in rehashing that idiotic argument once again here.  One of the ironic factors of this series is that sex is so vital to the story (whereas it is a hindrance in any number of VNs I can name).  The Tantric magic many of the non-human characters use to sustain their existence is vital to the story, and it is also vital to the understanding of the setting.  It can't be avoided and it can't be cut out without effectively neutering one of the ongoing conflicts of the overarching story of the series in general.  So, for those who dream of Sekai Project cutting out the sexual content and localizing this game... please don't do that to us, since it would be criminal... and this is from someone who generally skips H-scenes while doing something else.
    Perhaps the most powerful element of the series - other than Serika's legendary life - is the setting.  From what I've read, it seems that Eushully originally intended the setting to only cover a single game... the first Ikusa Megami.  However, while Ikusa Megami itself was considered only average as a game, the world-building the setting was widely praised by those who played  it, and as a result, Ikusa Megami 2 got released, becoming even more popular.  However, it was the release of Zero that basically converted the Japanese-playing Western community to the cause of seeing these games come over here.  Going back into the distant (700 years or more distant) past of the world, it covers the formative years of Serika's lonely journey, as his life was destroyed, changed beyond all recognition to eventually result in the creation of the person he became.  All along the way, through various characters and events, the gaps in the setting were further filled in, bringing the series even more to life. 
    The setting of the series is a world that was basically created when a high-technological world (pretty much Earth) discovered a fantasy world with elves, dwarves, and other non-human races... and decided to merge the two worlds together (the details are pretty much deliberately wiped out by the gods long before the story's beginning, so don't expect everything to be told).  This was quite naturally disastrous for both sides... but especially for the high technological civilization.  That high technological civilization (humans) found itself at war with magic-wielding races with a strong faith in their gods, which granted those gods the power they needed to defeat the technological advantage the humans had... while also defeating the humans' gods, who were already weakened by the poor faith of the humans who worshiped them and further weakened when the gods of the invaded world began to convert the humans to their faiths.  This eventually resulted in the death, sealing, or conversion of most of the gods of humanity, renamed 'the old gods' in the new world.  Humanity had its memory of the past civilization reduced to a few ruins and distant legends, and most of humanity settled into a worship of the gods of the new, merged world.  This in itself would have made for a pretty rich setting... but they take it to insane degrees of complexity when you throw demons, magic-technology, fights between darkness and light (followers and gods), neutral gods, and the rapid growth of humanity's sphere of influence into account. 
    The constantly shifting moral perspectives, as well as the innumerable factions and nations that make up this setting, make for some really fascinating lore.  That in and of itself would make it worth playing these games, but the inclusion of side-stories (such as Meishoku no Reiki and Madou Koukaku) and direct links to the main series (the Genrin no Kishougun games) adds even more depth to the physical world and its history, as you come to know various historical figures and other parts of the world.
    Now that I've waxed poetic (sort of) on the virtues of the story and setting... I should probably state that the series itself is pretty standard, gameplay wise.  It uses your basic turn-based combat, for the most part, and this is generally a benefit, as it makes actually learning the basics of battle rather simple, outside of a few details.  Since battles generally start and end quickly (outside of boss battles) if you know what you are doing, Zero, Verita, and Tenbin feel like less of a grind than they really should, based on the game type.  The biggest difference between Zero and the other two games is that Zero is primarily telling a story, whereas the other two also have Star Ocean style EX dungeons that can serve as a huge challenge in comparison to the rest of the game, even if you have your characters maxed. 
    Generally, the benefits of the series can be summed up like this: gameplay accessibility, good plot, and a deep setting.  For those looking for a true hybrid of the best of jrpgs and visual novels, this series is an excellent choice.
  13. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Weabooism: The experience, its causes (in Westerners), and tempering it with doses of reality   
    Hello, my name is Clephas, and I am/was a weaboo.  *snickers at the AA reference*  I'm mostly posting on this matter to give those otakus who aren't necessarily weaboos an idea of what it is like to be a weaboo (ignoring social problems, for the moment, haha) and just why we exist in the first place. 
    First, to correct a common misconception... not all weaboos are solely obsessed with Japanese culture/history/etc.  In fact, most Western ones are or eventually become interested in all Asian cultures.  There are a number of reasons for it usually starting with an obsession with Japan, and I'll try to cover them all for you. 
    The most obvious reason is that Japan's culture is so obviously different from anything in the average Westerner's personal experience (extracting those that come from first-generation Asian immigrant families).  To be blunt, the average American can at least guess at European sensibilities and the average European can do the same, with some mental effort.  We share a basic religious background, our social contracts are based on the same basic philosophy (with differences in preferences), and we tend to have similar cultural ancestors if we look back into history.  Heck, even most of Latin American can say the same.  So, for the average white-on-white Westerner (or Hispanic as the case may be), there might be numerous personal differences, but the actual cultural differences are in the details rather than the base elements. 
    On the other hand, there is literally no common base between us and most Asian cultures, save that which we forcibly transplanted during the colonial days of the past two centuries.  Whereas we experienced various types of paganism and polytheism followed by Christianity, they experienced Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto... the list goes on.  Not only that, the way we developed our cultures was essentially different.  Confucianism in China (and the symbol of the Emperor in Japan) provided a sense of structure and continuity for centuries that altered greatly the way Chinese see the world even today, though most of its precepts have been altered almost beyond recognition in the millennia since their development.  This sense of continuity (in aspects other than philosophical) over such a vast period of time is perhaps one of the biggest causes of differences between Chinese culture in particular and Asian culture in general.  To be blunt, when the Chinese were already an Empire, our ancestors were mostly banging on drums in small settlements across the face of Europe, begging the elements not to starve our children or flood us out.  The 'weight' of culture is so much greater in Japan in China that Westerners in general and Americans in particular can't help but be impressed (or offended/frightened as the case may be) on first encounter with it. 
    That said, whether that first impression turns to fascination or apathy is entirely based on the individual.  People that are more curious are more likely to get sucked into it, whereas those who prefer what they already have are more likely to simply set aside that first impression and move on. 
    Another reason is that Japan is really really good at 'advertising' its culture... without really trying.  How many of you watched Pokemon, DBZ, or even Voltron or Robotech as kids without even knowing what it was?  I think you'd be surprised at how many otakus received an early baptism of Japanese ideas that planted the seeds for an eventual otaku and/or weaboo transformation.   For that matter, how many of you saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (new or old) or one of the more modern Batman movies?  Perhaps because of the intimate role we played in rebuilding post-war Japan, as well as the stream of Japanese who immigrated after the war, Japanese influence touches lightly on a great deal of our urban society (less so on the rural, though). 
    The 'second baptism' that most Americans experience is negative... it is history class when you hit WWII.  The ferocity and apparent insanity (in the average Westerner's eyes) of the Japanese during the war causes an almost involuntary fascination in those who read about it, that frequently leads to a search for answers as to just why they acted the way they did during the war.  This inevitably leads to the samurai culture (both popular and historical), thus frequently creating new weaboos in droves, despite the fact that the WWII history is pretty horrifying the way it is presented (and even worse in reality).
    No one is more mouthy and annoying than a new convert of any sort... and those weaboos that most annoy people are generally this type... the ones who haven't yet realized that their obsession can annoy others and thus can't stop themselves from chattering endlessly about some new aspect they discovered along the way, as if they were the first to find that particular fact out. 
    Tips for tempering your obsession
    If you are a weaboo, it is almost inevitable you will say too much to someone who isn't interested at some point.  In that way, it is a lot like standard otakuism.  However, if you want to at least limit your annoyance factors, here are a few tips.
    1- Don't beautify every single aspect of Japanese culture you find.  Samurai culture led to the insane nationalism and mass suicides of WWII.  Geisha were glorified prostitutes (albeit artistically beautiful ones).  Ninja were spies descended from thieves and common murderers.  (etc. etc.)
    2- Be aware that Japanese culture can take some seriously ugly turns in the modern era (the fact that police don't get involved in domestic affairs, the weak rape laws and enforcement of those laws, bullying in schools and at work, hikikomori, karoushi). 
    3- Be aware that the excessive pride of some Japanese has led to a resurrection of the same nationalism that caused their involvement in WWII (modern historical revisionism focused on WWII and the events immediately preceding it is a prime example of this).
    4- The Japanese really did do most of the horrible things their neighbors said they did... not to mention the POW camps where they held the Philippines US troops during the war.
    5- Japanese gun control only works because they have no history of regular people possessing personal arms.
    Well, that ends my lecture for the day. 
  14. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, ***SPOILERS*** Komorebi no Nostalgica: Why I think this is the best AI VN out there.   
    Komorebi no Nostalgica is one of the more interesting VNs I've read in the past three years.  I occasionally go back and play one of its paths when I want to restore my faith in VNs, and one of its primary themes is artificial intelligence.  There are a number of different viewpoints represented in the VN about AIs, ranging from classic horror stories and instinctive repulsion to acceptance and/or affection. 
    Cinema, who is the source of most of the central conflicts of the VN, is a humanoid robot created before the big war that basically wiped out the internet archives and a lot of humanity's knowledge of its own past.  She was apparently customized immensely by the man known only as the 'Store Manager', who ran an underground video rental shop with her as the clerk.  She isn't a heroine, but it wouldn't be incorrect to state that she is the focus of all the major events of the story.  In many ways, her personality and setting resemble that of the heroine from Planetarian, and those who played that ancient will probably be able to easily recognize the earnest, almost childlike nature of the two. 
    The generation of humanoid robots after her eventually developed a self-determining will and intelligence, becoming fully sentient, sparking a pogrom (of humans slaughtering robots that were suddenly seen as a threat) that led straight into a war that shattered human society as it existed at the time.  The war was... a draw, though a draw that turned out more to the advantage of the robotic Metasera than to that of humanity.  During the war, Cinema was put into hibernation and hidden by her creator, until she was awakened by the protagonist and his hare- *coughs* friends. 
    The Metasera, having gained the right to self-determination in exchange for forfeiting their right to aggressive self-defense, live in small arcologies based in just about every major city of the planet, learning from and aiding humans as they seek to evolve their budding intelligence and emotions further.  One of the heroines, Fluorite, is a Metasera, and it is through her that you get the writer's insight into the idea of the results of a 'naturally occurring' AI. 
    Cinema, on the other hand, presents an entirely different path to the same goal... she is a low-spec virtual intelligence that is designed to grow into full sentience and in the end gains a far wider spread of emotions than the Metasera... while also showing off a surprising degree of emotional development, even before she gains that sentience.  The idea of an AI that develops intelligence before emotion and causes a war (the Metasera) versus an AI that develops intelligence after emotion and is a friend to humanity from the beginning (Cinema) is one of the many hidden themes of the VN. 
    There were innumerable times in the VN that I felt intellectually stimulated or driven to express raw emotion.  The story is just that powerful, after all.  Moreover, the protagonist and friends are of the first generation to grow up without knowledge of the world prior to the Metasera, and it is the writer's portrayal of this aspect that is frequently the most interesting.
  15. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Renai Phase: No VN of the Month, as expected   
    As I’ve said before, Giga is at its best when it is doing the Baldr series.  Why?  Because their high production values really shine in a more serious setting, as it gives so many more tools for presentation.  That’s not all… for some reason, in my experience Giga seems to be incapable of making a non-Baldr gem.  Their stuff is inevitably visually beautiful and has great sound… but in exchange, the stories tend to be deeply flawed or poorly paced compared to other companies with less money power.
    This VN is no exception.  I’ll be honest… this VN hit several of my major pet peeves from the very beginning.  For one thing, they let you name the protagonist… and despite the immense amount of money the studio possesses, they didn’t even have the default name voiced by the heroines, which seems a waste.  As such, this pissed me off from the very beginning.  Making it worse is that the early VN is too openly a koukan-do type choice system, where you have to say what the heroines want to hear.  This gets old fast, as it actually makes sounds and has a visual effect, which ironically gives me the ‘businesslike’ feeling I prefer to avoid in VNs.
    The heroine routes… are not something worthy of writing home about.  I’ll be honest, I probably would have rated this game a bit higher if it weren’t for the first part of the game… but the heroine routes just don’t have much depth.  It is like one long avalanche of ichaicha and H-scenes, making the game as a whole feel even more ‘businesslike’ to me, after the baptism of fire that was the common route.  Making it worse is that there is no real depth to the heroines, which kind of defeats the point of having individual routes, as the protagonist is a non-entity self-insert ragdoll. 
    Overall, this VN is a really flashy plaster covering over a lot of mediocre content.  I was actually surprised at how bad this VN is, as Giga usually manages to do a little better (albeit not a great deal more so) than this with its non-Baldr games.

  16. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Visual Novels and the Bechdel Test   
    As I was drinking my third cup of coffee this morning, it occurred to me that most non-otome or yaoi visual novels I can think of pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Bechdel Test requires that a work of fiction:
    have at least two women in it who talk to each other about something besides a man. With obvious exceptions (Planetarian, etc.) most VNs have little trouble crossing this threshold — the casts are almost entirely female, and slice-of-life scenes are a staple of the genre. Meanwhile, nearly half of all American-made films don’t meet this same standard.

    So to make things a little more interesting, I’d like to propose the Darbury Test™ (full name: “The Darbury Addendum to the Bechdel Test”). To get this particular merit badge, the VN in question must:
    have at least two women in it who talk to each other about something besides a man, neither of whom ends up having sex with the main character. That’s right. If either one of them ends up with a red-hot ramrod crammed in one or more meat holes, crying out, “OH, YOU CAME SO MUCH!” — fail. Even if the action happens off-screen (e.g., in an all-ages version) — fail. Even if the woman in question is actually a demon/robot/vampire/catgirl/taco — fail.

    Steins;Gate? Even that fails.
    I can also think of a bunch of VNs that pass. Either way, it makes for an interesting thought experiment while you’re waiting for that next pot of coffee to finish brewing.
    EDIT: Looks like the forum upgrade nuked all the styling of this post for a while. Sorry for the temporarily uncloaked spoilers.
  17. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, VN Image Editing: The Skinny on Vertical Type   
    You know how you can translate Japanese far too literally and end up with stilted and nonsensical prose? It’s also possible reinterpret Japanese graphics far too literally and up with an illegible mess. Case in point: vertical type.

    Japanese text is typically typeset one of two ways: the traditional tategaki style (characters arranged in vertical columns, read from right to left), or the more modern yokogaki style (characters arranged in horizontal rows, read left to right, as in English). When editing images for visual novels, you’ll usually be dealing with a lot of tategaki, but it’s possible you’ll encounter some yokogaki as well. Unless you just bought a pamphlet from that crazy guy hanging out beneath the subway stairs — Happy Birthday to Gravy! I’m Made of Bees! — you will literally never see English typeset this way. So how do you handle it when you do?

    Typically, as long as you have the room, you’d set it the same as you would any other English text: horizontal, left to right, for maximum legibility. But what if you don’t have room? Particularly when dealing with UI elements, you might only have enough real estate for a single vertical column of characters. What then?

    Grab it by the spine
    Thankfully, generations of English-language typesetters have already solved this problem for us. Just walk over to your media shelf and look for yourself. See all those books, DVDs, video games you’ve got lined up there? Not only did you spend an obscene amount of money on those — seriously, how are you ever going to pay off your student loans this way? — but their spines all display titles the exact same way: horizontal type, rotated 90 degrees clockwise so that it reads from top to bottom. Any designer worth his or her salt will tell you that’s how it’s done.

    So there’s your answer. Do that. You’re welcome.

    But now you face a much bigger challenge: convincing non-designers that this is, in fact, the best approach.

    The vertical smile frown
    This came up once on a project where almost the entire UI was arranged in vertical lines of Japanese calligraphy. I’d painstakingly set hundreds of text elements in the correct bookspine-style, only to get a note back from the project lead asking that everything be re-typeset in the exact manner of the original Japanese, character stacked atop character.

    Y
    o
    u

    k
    n
    o
    w
    ,

    l
    i
    k
    e

    t
    h
    i
    s
    ?

    I’ve been a professional designer for enough years that, honestly, I forget not everyone gives much thought to why you don’t set type like this. So in that sense, the request didn’t annoy me; I understood the motivation behind it. But I did end up having to write a fairly lengthy defense of bookspine-style type as a result. Since I’m not the first person to face this problem, and I know I won’t be the last, I thought it might be useful to summarize a few of those points here.

    If you’re an image editor, maybe it’ll give you ammunition to back up your case one day. If you’re working with an image editor, maybe it’ll provide some insight into the thought he or she puts into typesetting. If you’re my mom, maybe you’ll finally believe I learned something in college.

    The End of the World as We Know It
    Seeing is believing, so let’s try all the options and see for ourselves what works and what doesn’t. I’ve cropped in on a small slice from a hypothetical UI sprite sheet for our discussion. I’ve also simplified it, hiding all the various hover and active states, so all we’re dealing with is the vanilla text.
    Here’s the original edited version:

    For this project, we need a script/calligraphic type that will remain legible even at very small sizes. (I do all my VN reading on an 8” tablet, so I use that as my small-screen baseline.) We land on this font here, a clean Western script that still feels right at home among traditional Eastern design elements. And since you can see that some of the UI text runs very long — these are chapter titles, I imagine — compactness is also a consideration. This typeface handles that quite nicely.
    Let’s see what happens if, rather than bookspine-style, we run these lines vertically:

    What’s wrong here? More like, what isn’t?

    It doesn’t fit: Unlike squarish Japanese characters, English letters tend to be taller than they are wide. This means if you stack them vertically, you’ll end up with something that eats up almost twice as much space as horizontal type. You’ll need to reduce the point size to make everything fit. Or worse yet, squish the letters vertically to compensate. Yuck.

    It fights against the letterforms: This is a script face, so it slants rightward, one letter leading the eye into the next. Moreover, lowercase letters set in script often physically join to one another, as if written in a smooth, flowing hand. A vertical stack is antithetical to both of these: there is no “next” letter to lead the eye into, nor is there any adjoining character to connect to.

    It looks like a gap-toothed palooka: Notice how some of the letter pairs almost overlap, while others have relatively large spaces between them. This is another reason English type wasn’t meant to stack vertically. Even though there’s exactly the same amount of space between the baseline of each letter, some have descenders (e.g., the “tails” of the letters y or q), some have ascenders (e.g., the “flagstaff” of the letters b or d), and some have neither (e.g., x or o). This gives the vertical type a drunken stagger-step of sorts, an ungainly visual gait that we’d like to avoid at all costs.

    It doesn’t handle punctuation well: There’s no graceful way to handle periods, colons, and so forth in vertical type. You could center it below the last letter, as in the original Japanese, but that looks confusing in English. And how would you handle a possessive, like “Darbury’s cat”? Stacked vertically, it would look more like “Darbury, scat.” (Fine. See ya, ingrate.)

    It’s borderline illegible: There’s been lots and lots of research into the science of how people read — how we recognize letters, words, and sentences. There’s a lot of pattern recognition going on in our brains and, for native speakers of Western languages, those patterns almost always work horizontally. Setting type vertically can literally slow down reading and comprehension speed by an order of magnitude.

    So let’s be clear: this sucks. But there are a few things we can do to slightly minimize the suckage. First, let’s set everything in all caps. Like this
    That eliminates our gap-tooth problem; uppercase letters don’t have ascenders or descenders, so all the letters now appear evenly spaced. But we’ve had to reduce the point size even further to make everything fit. (We started out at 20pt. We’re now at 12pt.) Also, our calligraphic type still slants to the right, making each letter feel like a drunk who leans against a wall only to find it isn’t there. We want a handwritten feel to the type, however, so we try switching to an upright block letter font instead:

    This is pretty much as good as it’ll get ... and it’s still not great. It’s still hard to read, and we’ve had to sacrifice the elegance of a script typeface. But wait — it gets worse. Right now, these lines have lots of padding left and right, since I’ve hidden all the other elements on this sprite sheet. What happens when they sit closer together, as they probably will in-game. You get this:

    I don’t know about you, but my brain wants to start reading horizontally adjacent words as sentences: “It birds and eye listen” Huh? It’s like trying to drive an SUV where the steering is constantly pulling to the right. It’s not what we’re looking for in a car, and it’s not what we’re looking for in our typesetting.

    In short, vertically set text is a god-awful mess. Don’t use it. (Obligatory waffling: Okay, maybe if there’s one or two vertical buttons in the whole game. And maybe if they were really, really short — you know, like “SAVE” and “QUIT”? Maybe then you could get away with it. But otherwise, nononono a thousand times no.)

    Introducing my backup singers
    I’m not the only one preaching this gospel. These fine folks agree:
     
     
     
     
     

    So the next time someone asks you to set vertical type, just say no. Then link to this blog post and tell ‘em Darbury told ya so. 
  18. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Oh, The Jokes I Have Broke (Part 1 of ∞)   
    As any translator can probably tell you, Japanese jokes are a huge pain to capture in English. There are unfamiliar memes, cultural references, wordplay, riffs on kanji characters — none of which are particularly easy to convey to Western audiences. If you get lucky, a few nips and tucks in editing are all you need to make one of these unwieldy beasts work in English. If you get unlucky, however, you end up having to grab the rib spreader and do some major linguistic surgery.
    Sometimes the patients pull through. Sometimes they die on the operating table. These are their stories.
    Joke 1: Pearls before swine
    In this scene from KoiRizo, Soutarou has just finished giving one of the girls a bit of helpful advice passed down to him by his grandfather. The raw translation is below:
    Soutarou: “... That's the motto that they followed back then, I think. Well you know, according to my grandfather.”
    Riho: “Your grandfather's ball bag?”
    Soutarou: “A-Although I think that he got it from my grandmother...”
    Riho: “Ha ...?!”
    Soutarou: “...”
    Riho: “I just said a really strange thing ―!”
    Get it? Get it? No, of course you don’t. KoiRizo was intended as a literal translation, and read literally, this makes zero sense. At this point in my editing, the only choice I had was to go back to the original script, break out the Japanese > English dictionaries, and see if I could figure out what the hell was going on here.
    As near as I could figure, Riho meant to use the word “chiebukuro” — literally, “sack of wisdom.” She intended to say something about Soutarou’s pop-pop being a pretty smart guy, chock full of good advice. Instead, she uses “tamafukuro” — literally, “ball sack.” You can understand Soutarou’s confusion when Riho starts talking about his grandfather’s wrinkly old nuts. Nice guy that he is, however, Souatrou tries to give her a graceful out, suggesting it was actually his grandmother who provided the advice. Riho realizes her error and is appropriately mortified.
    Great. We’ve puzzled it out ... but at this point, the joke still doesn’t work in translation. “Sack of wisdom” isn’t a common English phrase, so the reader won’t catch the intended meaning behind Riho’s mistake. It just sounds like a plain old non sequitur right now. So our next task is to change her line to something that (1) works as a Freudian slip, (2) comes out of the blue, and (3) is sexually shocking enough to catch Soutarou off guard.
    The version I eventually settled on ran something like this:
    Soutarou: “... That was the common advice back then, I think. Well, you know, according to my grandfather.”
    Riho: “Your grandfather must have really liked giving you pearl necklaces, huh?”
    Soutarou: “A-Actually, it might have been my grandmother who liked giving out pearls of wisdom ...”
    Riho: “Ha ...?!”
    Soutarou: “...”
    Riho: “I can’t believe I just said that ―!”
    Here, we’ve keep the same basic structure, but rather than “sack of wisdom,” Riho tries (and fails) to say “pearls of wisdom,” a much more common English idiom. And now, rather than Grandpa’s gnarly ballsack, we have the even more shocking image of the old guy giving his grandson pearl necklaces on a regular basis. Soutarou still gets to save the day by pivoting to his grandmother, and then the rest of the joke plays out pretty much as originally written.
    Does it work? I hope so, but one could just as easily argue that I broke it. It’s a different gag; there’s no doubting that. But at the end of the day, I’d rather have a joke that works and maintains the original’s spirit than one that’s accurate to a fault.

    Joke 2: Deflowering the girls
    Here’s a joke I know I broke during editing. Smashed it to the ground and danced on the pieces. In my defense, it was looking at me funny.
    In the raw translation of this scene, resort manager Nagisa has just asked the staff to gather in their swimsuits for a big announcement:
    Nagisa: “I have a reason for calling you all here like this today.”
    Nagisa: “I'd like everyone to become the 'detergent' of the facilities.”
    Sango: “Detergent? Us?”
    Nagisa: “Oh, sorry. By detergent, I was referring more to advertising material.... In other words, I need you guys to photograph for an advertisement.”
    Again, another joke that makes no sense when read literally. And the only TL note I had to go on said, “This translation won't work in English.” Agreed. So I hauled out the J>E dictionary again, but had much less luck this time. At best, I came away with a wisp of a shred of a guess. My hunch was that Nagisa was using one very specific meaning of the word “senzai”— the foremost part of a garden, the loveliest flowers intended to set the stage and entice visitors in deeper — and Sango interpreted it as another more common meaning of “senzai” — namely, detergent. Nagisa clarifies her meaning, everyone has a chuckle, and the scene continues.
    I wasn’t sure if I was right — I’m an editor, not a translator — but lacking any better options, I decided to go with it. And I promptly flailed about like a clown being drowned in a bathtub. Right off the bat, I knew there weren’t any good English sound-alikes that would work here. So instead, I wrote about a dozen variations on garden and flower puns, but none of them managed to weave plausible misunderstanding with Nagisa’s actual meaning. Worse yet, they just weren’t funny.
    Next, I tried a few bawdier versions, but quickly abandoned those as well. This scene is going to get more risqué in a minute, but throwing in a sex joke right now would be tipping our hand too soon. (In one draft, I had Nagisa say she wants the girls to be the hook that lures visitors to the island. Sango replies, “What?! You want us to hook for you?” — i.e., she thought her boss wanted to pimp them out as resort hookers.)
    Having hit brick wall after brick wall, I decided to strip the joke down to its essence. What’s the basic structure here? Nagisa says she wants to use the girls to help sell the resort. Sango suffers a comic misunderstanding. Nagisa corrects her. The end. So that’s what I wrote:
    Nagisa: “There’s a reason why I’ve called everyone here like this today.”
    Nagisa: “I've decided to sell you.”
    Sango: “Sell us? Is that even legal?”
    Nagisa: “Oh, sorry. By ‘sell,’ I meant using you to help advertise the resort ... In layman’s terms, I need you guys to model for some publicity photos.”
    We lose the poeticism of the original — that image of the girls as flowers drawing visitors in — but in exchange, we get something that actually works as wordplay in English while still delivering the necessary plot info (Nagisa’s marketing brainstorm). It’s still not a particularly hilarious gag, but then again, neither was the original.
    In both examples, I ended up completely rewriting large chunks of each joke. And while I'm not entirely satisfied — I wish I could have kept more of the original language — I'm okay with the result. Editing is a balancing act. You want to remain as faithful to the original text as possible while maintaining the audience’s immersion in the work. If the reader suddenly comes across a joke that clearly doesn’t parse in English, that immersion is broken. They stop. They scroll back and re-read it a few times, trying to make sense of it. They wonder if they’re missing something, or if the TL team just messed it up. BAM. They’re now completely out of the world of the visual novel. The magic is broken.
    Because magic is only magic until you notice the strings. Or that dead clown in the bathtub.
  19. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah (Editing Onomatopoeia in VNs)   
    There is a secret language spoken in the darkest corners of the visual novel world, a cant so ancient and intricate that none know its origins. To be initiated in its ways, one must drink from the Dread Chalice and be reborn in fire. Only then will the caul be drawn from your eyes.
    You shall know onomatopoeia. And you shall know fear.
    Sploosh 101: What is onomatopoeia?
    Before we jump in with both feet — *splash!* — let’s do a quick primer on terminology. An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates, resembles, or suggests the source of the sound it describes — i.e, it sounds like what it is. Like clink, yip, kaboom, swish, meow, oink. (That’s the verbatim transcript of my bachelor party, in case anyone’s wondering.) This is different from a word that describes a sound or action, but doesn’t actually imitate it — e.g., sneeze vs. achoo, punch vs. kapow, close vs. slam. The latter are onomatopoeia; the former, I call ononotopoeia.
    For the sake of brevity, let’s refer to these O and not-O.
    The Japanese language is rich in O. There’s a sound effect for everything. There’s probably a sound effect for there being a sound effect for everything. (If there isn’t, I’d like to propose one now: darubu.) There are even sound effects for things that don’t actually make sound — e.g., “jii” for staring. While it’s woven into the fabric of the modern Japanese language, O is especially prevalent in manga and, to a somewhat lesser extent, anime. Since visual novels draw heavily from these two worlds, they too feature lots and lots of these words.
    English is relatively impoverished in O by comparison, and therein lies the challenge for VN translators and editors. Do you leave these essentially untranslatable sound effects as they are? Or do you try to translate them, losing some of their immediacy and, for lack of a better word, oomph?

    Across the great divide
    The VN community seems to be fairly split on that question. In one camp, we have the purists. By and large, these are readers who are already comfortable with Japanese O through manga and anime. They consider it part and parcel of the VN experience. Learning and appreciating such terms is simply part of becoming an accomplished reader. It’d be like going to a fine dining restaurant and, instead of the chef presenting you with “the amuse-bouche,” he just came out and said, “Here’s this small appetizer thingy I made. Hope you like it.” The vocabulary is part of the experience.
    In the other camp, we have the reformists. To them, leaving O untouched isn’t translation; it’s mere transliteration. It denies meaningful content to the uninitiated English reader — e.g., if you don’t know "munyu" means to grope someone, you’ll be clueless when the best girl hauls off and smacks the protagonist in the very next line. To extend the fine dining metaphor, it’d be like going to the same restaurant, being handed a menu that was all in French, and having the waitstaff snootily refuse to tell you what anything meant. Hope you like thymus glands, mon ami, because that’s what you just ordered.
    When it came to KoiRizo, I was a reformist editor on a purist project. I joined the team after the translation had been completed and a lot of the big up-front decisions had already been made: Will this be a literal translation or liberal? (Literal.) Will we keep all the honorifics? (Yes.) Will we keep all the onomatopoeia? (Yes.) MDZ, the KoiRizo project lead, was very up-front about all this. And that was fine. The job of a VN editor is to facilitate and execute on the project lead’s vision. It’s great if you’re involved early enough to shape that vision, but it’s ultimately his/her show, not yours. (If you’re not okay with that, go start your own TL project.) So with that in mind, I did the best purist editing job I could.
    But what if I had carte blanche in how I approached O? What would I do differently? As luck would have it, I’ve given that some thought.

    Onomatopoeia in standard scripts
    For the majority of scripts, it helps to separate O-words into two groups: content-light ad content-heavy. The content-light group tends to consist of interjections, exclamations, grunts, groans, laughs, etc. These are mostly self-explanatory terms, communicating very little other than the fact that they’re a familiar sound. Some examples include:
    Ho E A Heh Uuu At most, I’ll clean these up to make them friendlier to Western eyes — “A! A sea cucumber!” becomes “Ah! A sea cucumber!” (In this case, it’d be too easy to mistake the “A” sound for a stammering repetition of the indefinite article “a.”) Otherwise, I’m happy to leave them be.
    On the other side, we have the content-heavy O-words. These are either (1) terms that have a very specific meaning you’d never be able to guess at without prior knowledge, or (2) common sounds that are rendered much differently in English than Japanese. These are the words that, if you ignore them, will result in meaningful content being lost in translation. Some examples include:
    Kakkun = the “sound” of hitting someone in the back of the knees. Based on a kids’ game. Su = the sound of something suddenly appearing (among other meanings) Gusu = the sound of a whimpering sob Hakushon = the sound of sneezing Chikutaku = the sound a clock makes Our first line of attack is to see if there’s any suitable English onomatopoeia we can swap in. It’s rare that it works out so neatly, but it does happen. So "hakushon" becomes “achoo,” "chikutaku" becomes “tick tock,” etc. If this doesn’t work, we fall back on another common approach: turning not-O English words into O by enclosing them in asterisks. So:
    “Gusu. Why won’t you return any of my calls?"
    becomes:
    *whimper* “Why won’t you return any of my calls?”
    As your final line of defense, you might consider abandoning O altogether, instead relying on some explanatory text to flesh out the intended meaning. So:
    Su.
    “Where do you think you’re going, jerk?”
    becomes:
    She appeared out of nowhere.
    “Where do you think you’re going, jerk?”
    I’d recommend turning to this as a last resort, however, since you can see a certain staccato elegance gets lost in translation.
    As for where you can find out what all these untranslated O-words mean, there are all sorts of online resources to be had out there. I tend to use the Japanese > English SFX dictionary over at The JADED Network, but I’m sure there are plenty of others just as good.

    Onomatopoeia in H-scenes
    Sex scenes are something of a special case. You’ll find there are large blocks of text that are nothing but wall-to-wall O. (I see what you did there, you sly dog you ...) Here are some sample lines from KoiRizo:
    Sango: “Nafufu. Fumu, Juru, Zuzuzu."
    Sango: "Rero, Chu, Chuu ..."
    Sango: "Hamu, Chuu, Chuu ... Rero, Juupu, Zuzu."
    Sango: "Jupo, Gupo, Zu."
    Sango: "Juzuzuzuzu."
    Sango: "Fumu? Fua ..."
    During editing, I liked to call these sections “word salad.” They’re an unholy mishmash of content-heavy O, content-light O, and nonsensical fuck-grunts. It’s a tangled mess of syllables that can make even the bravest editor or translator turn tail and run. In my earlier post on editing H-scenes, one of the commenters — smile for the camera, Ittaku! — suggested it might just be better to replace these sections with ellipses and let the VO do all the heavy lifting. It’s a tempting thought. But despite all appearances, there’s content to be had there — content the Japanese reader would have understood, and which the English reader will miss out on ... unless you take action.
    Let’s see what happens if we (somewhat liberally) run it through the techniques we’ve discussed so far.
    Sango: "Ummph. Umm." *slurp* *sluuurp*
    Sango: “Mmm.” *suuuck*
    Sango: *nibble* *suck* “Mmmm ...” *bob* *sluuurp*
    Sango: *sucksuck* *slurp*
    Sango: *slurpslurpslurpsluuurp*
    Sango: "Mmmph? Ahhh ..."
    Okay, it ain’t poetry, but at least we’ve transformed our tossed salad it into something with actual meaning. Even without having read the rest of the scene, you can guess that Sango is vigorously polishing the protagonist’s knob. Or is trapped in a vat of ramen and eating her way to freedom. It can be improved upon, of course; all those asterisks start getting visually distracting, so if the VN engine supports it, italics might be a better choice here. But I’d argue it’s much better than what we started with.
    Feeling more confident? Good. Go forth and sploosh.
  20. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Preparation H (Getting Ready to Edit VN Sex Scenes)   
    There’s no getting around it. If you’re looking to edit visual novels, at some point you’re going to have roll up your sleeves, put on the rubber gloves, and get elbow-deep in some H. The good news is that if you come prepared, practice your technique, and set some clear boundaries, it can be a pleasurable experience for both you and the reader.

    First, a disclaimer: I don’t like pineapple on my pizza, and I don’t like H-scenes in my VNs. It’s not a prudish thing; it’s a narrative thing. They’re rarely well crafted — you can feel all the hallmarks of the B-team being brought in to write them — and they almost never add plot/characterization that couldn’t have been handled better some other way. (I’ll pause here so you can mention Amane’s route from Grisaia, an exception that helps prove the rule.) Let’s be honest: they’re shoehorned in to help sell product. It’s built into the economics of the eroge genre. And honestly, that’s fine. I try to be sanguine about it and think of H-scenes as banner ads or TV commercials. They’re profit centers that help support the content I’m actually interested in. (I suspect more than a few developers feel the same way.)

    Long story short, H-scenes ain’t going anywhere. So how do we deal with them? Go in with a game plan.

    [Warning, there will be some NSFW language from this point forward. Sorry! It’s all part of seeing how the sausage is made.]

    1. Do your research
    In raw translation, sex scenes from a Japanese visual novel tend to be far from erotic. More often than not, they read like an obsessively detailed transcript of a gynecological exam. That’s not because the Japanese writing team suddenly forgot they were supposed to be penning a passionate sex scene. It’s just that what’s erotic in one culture isn’t always as erotic in another. It’s your job (along with the translator) to help bridge that cultural divide and come up with something that feels faithful to the original, yet still sexy in English.

    Your first stop? Research. Read some English-language erotica so you can get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. Sites like literotica.com even have stories broken out into fairly specific categories, so if you know you’ll be editing BDSM, threesome, and footjob scripts, you’ll have no problem finding what you need. (If you have all three in a single scene, you still might be in luck.) There’s also a category called “First Time,” which is more broadly useful, given how fixated many VNs are on virgins.

    Read, read, and read some more. Pay attention to the verbs, the nouns, the pacing. Try to quickly form a model of what makes a sex scene successful, then look to carry those techniques over to your VN script.

    2. Pack a box lunch
    If you take nothing else away from this post, remember this: bring a big bag of dicks; you’ll need them. Better pack a few pussies while you’re at it.

    By the time you’ve edited your third or fourth H-script, you’ll find you’ve run dry of good synonyms for the male and female genitalia. In KoiRizo, the raw script mostly used the word "thing" for the protag’s package, which ended up sounding childish and/or ambiguous in English. (I only kept it in a few instances where such a reaction might be appropriate — for example, when the route partner catches her very first glimpse of Lil’ Protag: “Is that your ... thing?”). The remainder of the original script was a mix of the clinical ("my mucous membrane”) and the hilarious (“my soiled meat stick”). As for ladyparts, the original script relied heavy on metaphor and indirect reference — lots of openings, entrances, gates, doors, depths, special places, overflowing pots of nectar, etc.

    So what’s missing from the above? The common English erotica standbys: “dick” and “cock” for men, “pussy” for women. There’s a reason for that. KoiRizo complicated things by using the Japanese equivalents of these very sparingly, reserving them mainly for shock effect in dialogue — “e.g., OMG, she just said ‘cock!’ Things must be getting real.” Moreover, when these words were finally hauled out, the devs bleeped the VO and censored the text string (e.g., “p*ssy”). That meant it was very obvious when those words were being used and when they weren’t.

    All of which presented quite a challenge to the team: if we were to preserve those “shocking” character moments, we couldn’t use the most common English terms 99% of the time. And so, I fell back on a shortlist of alternate references: pole, rod, erection, hard-on, manhood, etc. By the time I was done editing, however, this list felt far too limited; those words were overused pencils worn down to their nubs.

    This is one of those areas where, in hindsight, I feel like I could have done a better job with KoiRizo. The takeaway: If I ever tackle a VN this H-heavy again — doubtful — I’ll come packing a much longer list of euphemisms.



    3. Bring a raincoat
    Compared to its English counterpart, Japanese erotica seems downright obsessed with fluids: saliva, vaginal secretions, semen, urine — you name it. The look, the sound, the feel, the taste, the smell, the volume. You’ll be describing a lot of liquids in a lot of ways, so get ready to break out the thesaurus. And an umbrella.

    4. Embrace the improbable
    Let’s admit it: VN sex is over-the-top ridiculous. In a matter of seconds, sheepish virgins turn into seasoned pornstars, cramming 20 orgasms and 40 positions into a quickie broom closet hookup. (Oh so much cramming.) This is the nature of the genre, so don’t fight it; embrace it. Trying to force realism onto a typical H-scene would be like trying to force realism onto a Dragon Ball Z fight: everyone still looks constipated, but no one’s having any fun. If you’re that desperate to edit sadly mundane sex scenes, wait for the VN version of Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs to come out. Till then, work with what you have.

    I remember a tiny dustup a while back when another TL team supposedly wrote lubricant into an H-scene because they felt the acts described would be difficult or painful without it. It’s a minor thing, but if the original writer left the lube out, I’m inclined to do so too. These portions of the script are wish fulfillment at their best/worst, so just leave them be.

    Except ...

    5. Reject the impossible
    ... Except when the improbable becomes the impossible. More often than not, this is either the result of a mistranslation or an error by the original writers. (As an example of the latter, KoiRizo was haunted by an entity we dubbed “phantom Riho.” A couple of times, the devs would forget they were writing another girl’s scene and use Riho’s name for a line or two instead. We fixed this in our version, but still ...)

    Anyway, as editor, it’s your job to keep an eye out for the impossible. Is the protag’s penis simultaneously in someone’s vagina, anus, mouth, and ear? Did the heroine’s hymen suddenly regenerate? (Starfish Girl is mah waifu!) Did a corded vibrator suddenly become a battery-operated one? Ask to have the TL double-checked and, if that still doesn’t resolve the issue, use your best judgement to fix the error while causing minimal disruption to the surrounding lines.

    6. Set your limits
    This is important. Know what you’re comfortable with going into a project and make those boundaries abundantly clear. Some VNs can venture into very unpleasant territory — rape, abuse, gore, catgirls, etc. — and it’s best to ask yourself up front if you could, in good conscience, commit to editing that sort of content. Set your limits early on, then make sure your team’s fully aware of them.

    7. Have a sense of humor
    At the end of the day, VNs are entertainment. Unless you’re editing Saya no Uta 2: Vom Harder, it’s probably okay to approach your H-scripts with a subtle sense of play. A decent chunk of your audience will either be fast-forwarding through these scenes outright, or paying far more attention to the visuals than the script.

    So think of these times as exhibition games in your script editing schedule. They’re opportunities to spread your wings a little bit, try a few stylistic experiments — maybe even slip in a sly joke or two. And even if everything doesn’t quite work, we’ll still respect you in the morning.
  21. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Chronopolis for a blog entry, Japanese Learning for VN's: Skills   
    Introduction:
     
    When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
    -what knowing skills in the area are good for
    -how you might study them
    -how much you'll need to start reading.
    I'll also give some related tips.
     
    The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
     
    This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
     
    ------------------
     
    1. Vocab
     
    Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
    -About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
    -By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
    -~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
     
    Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
    -I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
     
    Vocab Lists:
    There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
    Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
    In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
     
    Regarding English definitions:
    Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
    For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
     
    2. Grammar Skills
     
    With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
    -Required to be able to play VN's
     
    With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
     
    N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
     
    N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
     
    Expressions not covered in JLPT
    There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと!? Xってなんだ? ですって!? ~てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
     
    Imabi for grammar
    You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
     
    3. Basic Parsing Skill
     
    Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
    -(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
    -Required to be able to play VN's.
     
    Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
    The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
    -Required to be able to play VN's.
     
    Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
    -you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
     
    4. Kanji Skill:
     
    Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
    -not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
     
    Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝(あさ) and 朝食(ちょうしょく) use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
    -moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
     
    The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
    Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
    -helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
    -don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
     
    Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
    -suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
    -helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
    -helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
     
     
     
    One last topic...
     
    On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
    Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
    There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
    There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
     
    ------------------
     
    Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
    The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.
  22. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Ojousamas for All! (AKA, The First Reference Rule)   
    Pop quiz, hotshot.
    There’s an untranslated (i.e, romaji) word sitting there in the script you're editing, staring right up at you. It’s been left like that because the TL team figured people ought to know what it means. But will they really? And what are the ramifications if they don’t? You’re running out of time, and patch release day is breathing down your neck. What do you do?
    WHAT DO YOU DO?
    In the case of KoiRizo, I ended up relying on a journalistic standard commonly called “the first reference rule.” Here’s how it works.
    Visual novels for all!
    Let’s say you’re a journalist writing an article about efforts to improve educational standards in underdeveloped nations. At some point, you might find yourself needing to refer to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, aka UNESCO. But if just you dropped the acronym “UNESCO” in there, most people wouldn’t know what the bloody hell you were talking about. And if you went with “The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” every time, your prose would be about as ungainly as me at my prom. So a compromise gets struck: you explain the term on your first reference to it, then use the shorter form thereafter.
    An example first reference:
    “The director-general of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), pledged to make visual novels part of the global curriculum by 2025.”
    Or:
    “The director-general of UNESCO, the UN agency focused on international education efforts, pledged to make visual novels part of the global curriculum by 2025.”
    At this point, you’d be free to use “UNESCO” in any future references, since you’ve already explained the term. Everyone wins: the reader understands what you’re talking about, and you only have to use one word instead of eight.

    Ojousamas for all!
    The same holds true for visual novels. Let’s say an untranslated term like “ojousama” shows up in your script. if the reader has consumed a fair number of anime/manga/VNs, they might know this describes a young woman of certain means and refinement. It’s a common VN archetype, after all. But a relative newcomer to these genres would have no way of knowing that. They’d be lost if you just started dropping O-bombs out of the blue.
    So the first thing to do is determine context. Is this a one-off reference? If so, you can probably just fully translate the line and be done with it. (“She takes a limo to school? She must be an ojousama” becomes, “She takes a limo to school? She must come from money.”)
    In the case of KoiRizo, however, the word “ojousama” is used several dozen times. In fact, a character’s ojousama-ness becomes the focal point of an entire route. It would be a fool’s errand to try and excise it, particularly when there’s no one English word to replace it. So we apply the first reference rule.
    The initial mention in the translated KoiRizo script reads:
    “Because she's an ojousama, it'd be a given that she wouldn't worry about matters like money.”
    It hints at the meaning, but doesn't quite go far enough. So applying our rule, we update it to:
    “She's a proper young lady of means — an ojousama — so you'd expect her not to worry about things like money.”
    We’ve now defined the word “ojousama” in context and set the stage for its future use. This will make the rest of the VN flow much more smoothly for both new readers and purists who prefer their tropey terms untranslated. If several hours go by without us using the word again, it’s common courtesy to provide a reminder of its definition, but otherwise we should be good to go.

    All for gruel!
    You can even apply the rule in reverse. Here, two characters are about to spend 50 or so lines talking about a certain home-cooked dish. Original translation below:
    A: “Okay ... What's in the pot?”
    B: “Rice gruel with egg broth.”
    We don’t want to spend the next 50 lines saying “Rice gruel with egg broth.” Nor do we want to just say “gruel,” which sounds like something ladled out in a Depression-era orphanage. In fact, this is a steaming bowl of Japanese comfort food deliciousness. So we apply the rule in reverse, and bring back the untranslated term from the original script:
    A: “Okay ... What's in the pot?”
    B: “Ojiya — rice end egg porridge.”
    Now we can safely use the term “ojiya” for the next 50 lines. This ends up working better on several levels: it makes the dish sound more traditionally Japanese, it strikes the right emotional tone, and it helps us shave extra words from our lines.
    P.S. - If anyone knows where I can get a really good bowl of ojiya in New York City, I’m all ears.
  23. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Seikishi Melty Lovers   
    To be honest, after the moe-moe disaster of Juukishi, I wasn't really interested in this VN... and while the VN was much more interesting than that lump of adorable pink crap, it had the down-side of being utterly predictable... to me.
     
    Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with a particular VN fad that several major companies bought into about five years ago, where they did partial 'slice-of-life' VNs in faux-medieval settings. This fad resulted in some good VNs, lots of mediocre ones, and a few truly horrible ones. This falls somewhere in between the good and the mediocre, in the sense that it hits all the points such VNs were 'expected' to hit (princess heroines, action scenes - though not necessarily good ones - and lots of slice-of-life). Seikishi has the benefit of a decent set of heroines... but their roles are so archetypical for this type of VN that I had to shake my head in exasperation. The only one that wasn't completely cookie-cutter was Rill, and she had her own issues.
     
    I'll be perfectly honest with you... I'm downright pissed off that Akabeisoft3 wasted my time with this VN. The Juukishi team seems to be incapable of escaping their roots, and the results were a VN that was disappointingly predictable in overall structure, right down the obstacles in each heroine's path. This isn't a horrible VN... but considering that Akabeisoft3 has access to many teams that actually write good VNs, I was more than a little miffed that they wasted funding on a moe-bait medieval slice-of-life with an excessive amount of H-scenes.
     
    Why am I being so overboard with the bashing here? It is mostly because I started getting tired about halfway through this VN. Flay's path was decent, as was Sefui's... but I really did feel like I was retreading old ground from beginning to end. While I don't generally expect brilliance from a team that specializes in moe-variants, it was still a frustrating experience to have it so completely fail to differ from my expectations in any way. I almost would have enjoyed this more if it had been a Walkure Romance-type battle sport VN, as several of the characters felt like they'd been extracted directly from that VN, with slightly different roles. Like most VNs with a partial action focus, the protagonist is generally the deciding factor for me on whether the VN is actually worth the effort... and unfortunately, the protagonist feels too much like a non-entity from beginning to end for me to actually believe he is attracting a set of such pretty and capable females.
     
    Edit: Almost forgot... basically, this VN is suitable for people who like a fusion between moe-elements, mild action, and faux-medieval settings. While this VN isn't one I'd personally want to go back to, it is nonetheless one of the better ones of the type.
  24. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    I make a living in copywriting, but KoiRizo was my first attempt at editing a visual novel. Suffice to say, there were a few bumps along the way. So in the spirit of this blog, here are just a few of the many, many things I wish I had done differently.

    1. I should have started out using a style guide.
    From the very beginning, I should have picked one of the major styles guides and made it my bible. Instead, as I came across questions — Should this be hyphenated? Should that be capitalized? — I just googled the answer. As long as I had a browser open, I might as well have gone to Orbitz and bought myself a one-way ticket to Inconsistencyville. Population: this guy.

    Thankfully, I quickly realized the error of my ways and was able to minimize the damage early on, but save yourself some pain and don’t repeat my mistake. Pick a style guide. Use it. My formal training is in journalism, so I’m partial to AP style, but most any style guide should do just fine: Chicago, MLA, MHRA, etc.

    But if you don’t use the Oxford comma, you deserve to die alone.*

    2. I should have (mostly) ignored the VO.
    In hindsight, I spent a bit too much time worrying about how the English script would match up to the exact cadences of the voice over. As a result, I kept in far too many ellipses from the original Japanese. So … at times … the script reads … like this. And, as it turns out, most of those VO pauses weren’t even perceptible enough to warrant their inclusion in the English text. Feh.

    Lesson learned. Next time, I’ll give priority to the written word. After all, it’s called a “visual novel,” not a “visual audio play.”

    3. I should have established character voice cheat sheets early on.
    This ranks pretty high on the list of things wish I had done differently when editing KoiRizo. The base translation was very literal, so, at least on the page, the characters’ speech patterns all read pretty much the same. The actual content of their dialogue gave them some level of characterization — oh Yuuhi, you so crazy — but still, I wish I’d been able to give everyone a more distinct voice ...

    Next time out, I plan to make up an index card for each main character with notes on speech patterns, vocal tics, and catchphrases. And then, I’ll spend sufficient time with the translator agreeing on how each character should speak. (I'm just an editor. The nuances of untranslated Japanese speech are a bit beyond my pay grade.) Do they drop their “g”s when talkin’? Does one use painfully proper grammar when one speaks? This should go a long way toward making sure each character maintains a consistent voice, particularly if multiple translators and editors are involved.

    4. I should have picked a visual novel I liked more.
    I know, right? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with KoiRizo. It’s a perfectly fine moege. It’s light and fluffy and inconsequential. (Except for the dramatic bits, which are angsty and fluffy and inconsequential.) I guess that’s partly why I chose it; far easier to hone my craft on lighter titles like KoiRizo, then move onto more substantial fare.

    But yeah, it never really clicked for me. (My VNDB rating for it has been hovering around a 6, if that tells you anything.) I tend toward VNs that take more narrative and metatextual risks, whereas KoiRizo is perfectly happy being an average, trope-heavy, cookie-cutter moege. Moreover, it had way too many H-scenes for my taste, often at the expense of plot. While it forced me to learn how to edit those types of scripts very quickly — more on that in a later blog post, I’m sure — it wasn’t something I always enjoyed.

    But still, I never let any of this affect the quality of the output. I work in advertising, and we very rarely have the luxury of actually liking the brands we create campaigns for. You either learn to compartmentalize, or you get weeded out fast. All of which is to say, I always tried to honor both the original authorial intent and the lead TL’s vision for the project as best I could.

    __________________

    So there you go. Just a few of the many editing mistakes I have made, presented here for your approval. May you go forth and learn from my facepalms.


    Because, as Goro says, forewarned is four-armed.

    *Or surrounded by cats.
  25. Like
    Darklord Rooke reacted to Rose for a blog entry, Threads you should check out - Week #19   
    The following list only contains threads made from July 18 to July 25, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it.



    If you don't know how the list works, please check the project
    thread.





    Visual Novel Discussion
    Mangagamer licenses Tokyo Babel (and Propeller's kusoge) (Link)
    Lightning Warrior Raidy 3 Info & Discussion (Now available) (Link)
    With the upcoming release of Windows 10, do you think that some VN's might have problems running? (Link)
    Which organization or site has done the most to promote VNs in the West? (Link)

    Development Boards
    Cocoro@Function translation (Link)
    A fan translation of Dies Irae battle scene 3 (Link)
    Boku no Hitori Sensou / My own private war - Translation? (Link)
    Criminal Investigations: With Woman's Tears (Updated 7/23/15) (Link)

    Other Discussion
    Starting a Translation company (Link)
    Way of the Samurai 4 Coming to Steam (Link)
    Cradle (Link)
    Ebay is the worst way to sell (Link)
    Characolle Key (Link)

    Blog posts
    Announcement: Migration to sanahtlig.blogspot.com and Blog update (Link)

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