MayoeruHitori
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Blog Comments posted by MayoeruHitori
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Key's history is a deep topic. That review of Little Busters is on point. Even before Little Busters, Clannad's After Story route was criticized by some for being too similar to YU-NO. When I watched one HBR trailer in slow motion, I could even see which character is the first to be sacrificed by Maeda... and it's the type of character he often chooses. He's actually self-aware that his ideas aren't all fresh: the story concept for Summer Pockets came from him, but he had hesitated to put it forward because he said it felt derivative of his earlier works. Still, Key wanted to use it, and SP sold well anyway. I liked SP too; a story doesn't need to be completely original to be enjoyed, and if HBR ends up anywhere near SP's level that would still put it in a league of its own among social games. Above all, Maeda still has strengths as a comedy writer and as a character writer; Kyousuke from Little Busters and Kanade from Angel Beats in particular are timeless fan favorites.
At the core, I guess VNs inherit the advantages and disadvantages of books. Most people just don't want to read books, unless there is something abnormally good there which they can't find elsewhere, or everyone around them is reading a particular book too, like Harry Potter (or Kanon, Tsukihime, Ever17). They prefer movie (or anime) adaptations of books. The English-based VN community never had a bubble, and so like you said, relatively speaking it's done well for itself in recent years, with DDLC even on Famitsu's cover the other day. But in contrast, the Japanese VN industry is expected to financially sustain a good number of companies that aren't just indies and localizers, and sales aren't what they used to be...
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Thanks! It's cool to hear that you found my posts interesting. Your views make sense, and I'm broadly aligned with them, except maybe in what I choose to emphasize.
I respect your cynicism toward social games, and even toward these two social games. TBF, we don't have any clear info about them yet. And my views are that VNs could improve social games, rather than the other way around, so this subject isn't immediately relevant to pure VN fans. Even then, I only put the chance of "revolution" at like... 20%? I'd say it's 60% that people look back at these games a couple years from now and say "oh yeah, that was a weird and cool design decision! too bad nobody played these games and they were shut down months later" and 20% that the producers just cut out what make these 2 games unique in beta tests to try to salvage the low-attention-span player base. So the prospect of an "intensely integrated experience" I mentioned is just a far-off possibility with that first 20% chance as a precondition.
When it comes to labors of love versus profit-oriented works, I find it hard to draw the line between them sometimes, but agree that uninspired writers produce poor works. Tribe Nine is a bit of an unknown, with the way Kodaka described their writers as having the freedom to create stories in any genre they want, yet they still take place in a very specific "extreme baseball" setting that Too Kyo came up with, so Kodaka's supervision counts for a lot... and HBR in particular feels less inspired that I'd like, but Maeda has been mostly out of inspiration for a while now anyway, and at least his humor and eloquence of prose is extremely consistent.
I agree that the medium of VNs (particularly eroge and doujinshi, but I don't want to slight CERO-regulated works) will always be suitable for works that are idiosyncratic and push the boundaries of creative expression. Especially DLsite VNs which aren't directly subject to Sofurin's behind-the-scenes regulation. Web novels (some of the Chinese and Korean ones are excellent too) and doujin RPGs are also powerful avenues for unrestrained creative expression. But due to the way VN engines fuse audiovisual elements and literature in a scaleable way, I still consider VNs the most ideally expressive medium. I'm like you in that I'd also not want to see VNs become lucrative again, if it meant that the already shrunken market for niche/inspired works disappeared completely. (I have no words for people who unironically say they think ero "holds back" VNs; with current economic forces in the industry, it's the opposite if anything. In the first place, the VN industry has enough room for both kinds; it's not a zero-sum game.) Honestly though, I don't expect that social games having better stories will directly impact the market for that, or drain much talent from the VN industry that hasn't already been drained. I know that Kodaka is someone who always seeks new challenges for himself, and Tribe Nine is just another one of them. In the end, I'm just guessing though.
It's not so much about bigger being better for script size, as the bigger the script size, the less likely they've constrained themselves by social game standards. Even early FGO's story, before Nasu reformed it, consisted mostly of 30-second ADV segments separated by dialogue-less battles. Later on, FGO (and other story-oriented social games) ditched this "constant battles" requirement, and had more consecutive ADV segments. That's what made early arcs of FGO expand from around 2K lines for the entire arc, to several times that. Even then, something like Babylonia is still just 7K lines for a plot that deserves much more than that and feels awkward when adapted into a 2-cour anime, so there is still a gap before it in any way resembles a VN story-wise. So yeah, when I heard that Tribe Nine's script size would be so huge before it's even launched, and in the absence of indications that they'll have multiple monthly events, I just hope that this means each event or main story arc within the game is slowed down to a literary pace that's at least comparable to Danganronpa. But the proof is in the pudding, so I'll be playing these games myself to find out.
Again, it's fantastic to have such thoughtful feedback on this post; I absolutely appreciate it. Oh, and you didn't particularly come off as a curmudgeon to me.
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If you could've saved all your videos on it, it might've been worth paying ~50 USD for a 1 TB external hard drive, if that was financially possible.
Good luck with whatever decision you make. (I'm just a passerby who was slightly intrigued by your post's title.)
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Hey Ramaladni, thanks for the recommendation! I've just checked out the Amazon reviews. I don't, specifically, have more interest in the details of early eroge history, or eroge alone, but since the latest 2017 edition covers even relatively modern history, I'd love to check it out. I did find a download for the older 2013 edition on manga-zip.net. In any case, thank you for the offer of help. Hmm, too bad there's no 2019 or 2020 edition, since there've been many developments in recent years (or even just the past 3 months frankly).
I'd say that the main subject of these notes (which you may not have finished yet) is the decline and evolution of adventure games and visual novels. Eroge declined somewhat too, but I think it's already firmly stepped onto the path of evolution (after deemphasizing ADV).
And nope, I have no plans for this to be a series.
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On 7/3/2018 at 4:01 AM, Chronopolis said:I think it's about greater purpose/meaning, ascending beyond the bounds of everyday thought and society, power to resist shackles and to be able to carve one's emotions upon the world.
It differs from power fantasy in that the focus in about escaping society and having purpose, as opposed to masterfully puppeteering the real world.
You bring up a good point. Although I personally emphasized a certain perception of "society" and "the masses", that's just the way I chose to verbalize the inspiration behind chuuni. In fact, many people who are immersed in chuuni tend to forget about other people's perceptions and simply enjoy themselves.
Being a cynic, when I described chuuni people's sentiments from my viewpoint, I just couldn't help but highlight that they're implicitly devaluing conventional truths and those who subscribe to them. Especially since I've been considering everything from a historical perspective.
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You make some awesome points! "Transcending the mundane" is a nice way to put it. Simple words like "cool" and "admirable" just don't quite strike at the heart of the appeal of chuuni story elements, because they don't contain any nuance of individualistic-ness or deep-ness.
For this FAQ, I personally elected to very broadly define chuunibyou and chuuni, because I wanted to make sure that no one more intimate with Japanese culture could come and say, "You're being naive about the range of interpretations of this word!" Your reply highlights the fact that there really is a lot more to be said, especially about different cultures. It was just easier for me to feel like I was being "objective" about what it means when I contextualized it within Japanese culture, where the word came from. But I do want to think more about chuuni from a cross-cultural perspective in the future--I made this blog for the sake of doing things like that. And I was hesitating on whether to bother publishing my next blog post which delves more into the nuance of chuuni, but I think I'll go ahead and do so later tonight (comments and criticisms welcome always).
On a side note, I'm curious, are there really many people who are so into Star Trek and Star Wars that they literally lose themselves in it? I never knew many trekkies, but I remember that when I saw the movie Galaxy Quest which is supposed to parody the Star Trek fandom, there was a fan in it who said, "I knew it was all real!" At that time, I thought, "Hmm, could it be that there are so many trekkies with chuunibyou that the fandom is self-aware of it!?" And I tried to Google to find more info, but I didn't find anything. I expect it can be harder to tell in Western cultures if someone in a fandom is chuunibyou about it, because people are so expressive and joke around so much, and cosplay is so common.
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Whenever I think about Eushully, I feel like I'm staring at the box containing Schrodinger's cat. Are they secretly in preproduction for an Ikusa Megami 2 remake, or are they just going to continue to work on mobage or lighthearted games and never release another Battle Goddess series title? Enough years have passed since Ikusa Megami Memoria that I've started to despair a little, combined with the break in their release schedule this year. Dir Lifyna is a wonderful setting, but I find that I don't care about it in most of Eushully's games, as it's only utilized to provide plot devices on demand.
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On 2/3/2018 at 2:31 PM, Veshurik said:
Hm... Niijima said something about what he/she did with Koikake and why?
Where can I read that, please? Because I'm also feeling not good, Us:track seems dead and not even fan-disk about Koikake or something...
I want the proper ending of Sena's story. I really can't understand why her personality still not revealed...
Here's a link to what Niijima said in the context of heavy backlash on 2ch and Twitter.
http://us-track.tumblr.com/post/136869669326/ご無沙汰しております-志水です-恋-シンアイ彼女お買い上げ頂きまして
I don't think there's much of a chance you'll see a proper ending of Sena's story, sorry.
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This is what Tsukihime is all about.
Also, avatar related.
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10 hours ago, Kiriririri said:
or maybe developers and good staff can't keep pushing new games out yearly but it takes them 2-3 yearsalso note that Niijima is one of the writers for Sakutoki too
Ugh, I really should have noted that. I was excited about Niijima's role in Sakutoki when I heard it announced, but I haven't consciously thought about it in weeks or months.
If you care, Sca-ji also tweeted to confirm that he does plan to release Sakutoki in 2017, just a few hours before I posted this. I was too busy to read his tweets then because I wanted to finish up this post...
And yeah, the dearth of top-tier VNs in 2017 inevitably is connected to the surfeit in 2018. Everything is about timing. That doesn't mean I'll stop blaming 2017. *slaps 2017 with prejudice* 2017 was also shitty because it was the year of the rooster, and it's hard to make roosters moe.
10 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:Nice, informative post Person I Haven't Seen Before. You're planning to write more of these?
Thanks, Friendly Commenter! At the moment, I have no such plans...
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Island seems to have also been one of the more notable titles this year, with more votes on ErogameScape than even Tokyo Necro (same median).
Web Novel Review: Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou
in Clephas' VN home
A blog by Clephas in General
Posted · Edited by MayoeruHitori
I love the Arifureta web novel too; nice to see someone talk about it on Fuwanovel. I'm not caught up on all the after stories, though.
For those who shy away from pure novels, the Arifureta manga is also a very solid adaptation, popular on sites like MangaDex. https://mangadex.org/title/248525ed-ad1c-4ddc-a834-5d6ce66a3ad2/arifureta-shokugyou-de-sekai-saikyou Also, those who want to read this novel in English should make sure to read the official J-Novel translation, which are really good and reads so much better than the mediocre half-MTL'ed fan translations. https://j-novel.club/read/arifureta-from-commonplace-to-world-s-strongest-volume-1-part-1
I agree that the connections Hajime has with the heroines are one of the best parts of this novel. I always try to find good harems like this, but it's hard. Campione is another great example.
P.S. On the subject of web novels, Kumo desu ga and Yondome wa Iya na Shi Zokusei Majutsushi are two other top-tier ones with antihero protagonists, which are (relatively) lesser-known. And I assume you've heard of Re-Zero, Overlord, and Mushoku Tensei... those are three other deeply unique web novels (well, Overlord at least abandoned its web novel version) with nice prose and amazing worldbuilding.