Dergonu

Nutaku has been caught censoring dialogues implying non-consensual sex in free-to-play ero-RPG Kamihime Project R, reneging on earlier promises.
Rape scenes censored in Nutaku's Kamihime Project R

While the final cause of my chronic insomnia has been a subject of much consternation on my part, the answer was none too subtle last night. Indeed, something weighed heavily on my heart, compounding the recurring problem of Arby's-induced arterial blockage.
If I were to own a cat, would it ever catch on to my laser-pointing diversions? As any former or current participant in this activity can attest, it is very entertaining, such that one should enjoy it in the absence of concerns that it may someday become infeasible. I ruminated on this question after recalling this gif that tangentially addresses the matter.
In other words, may I consider the feline mind analogous to that of a dog who, in a like manner, readily fetches the stick only to endure the same Sisyphean struggle moments later and without cessation?

I finished this game the other day, and decided to write up a short blog post on it.
Ryuukishi Bloody † Saga is the "sequel" to Akabei Soft3's Ryakudatsusha no Inen, (though the only relevant connection is the main character, and it pretty much works as a standalone game tbh.) The game completely breaks away from the dark nukige-like feel the first game had, and shifts the genre completely into something rather light hearted. (Though it has some rather gore filled fight scenes here and there.) The art even changes completely, making it feel like a totally different game.
I made a post about the prequel a bit back, and the things I felt that game did wrong was handled very well in the sequel, making it blow my expectations away. For those interested in this game who don't like overly dark themed stories and therefore want to stay clear of the prequel, you should be fine playing the sequel only as long as you read a general summary of the first game. (There is a couple of smaller refrences to the first game in the sequel, though nothing major.)
For those interested, I wrote up a summary of the first game here. It doesn't cover absolutely everything, but it gives you the info you need to read the second game.
Bloody Saga starts off with Roy walking through the forest without a care in the world, headed for a city called Veludylun. However, on his way there he notices dark smoke rising from within the city walls, and he is stopped by a group of knights protecting the entrance. The city is in a state of emergency, as a massive dragon is attacking. This is apperantly not the first time this has happened, and as mortal weapons cannot harm the dragon because of its tough scales, the best the knights within the city can do is distract the dragon long enough until it leaves.

Seeing the people of the city in dire need of help, Roy volunteers to help out with taking care of the wounded, as well as rebuilding the parts of the city destroyed by the ruthless dragon's attack. Keeping his dark past locked away deep within his mind, Roy starts a new life in Veludylun. He befriends four female knights, (who were originally selected by the king as "guards" to keep an eye on the outsider,) and together with them he spends his days helping out rebuild the city, uncertain when the dragon will attack next. 

The story of the game is nice, although it takes a bit of time for it to pick up. The slice of life moments are more than welcome though, as they don't feel boring at all. (At least not to me.) The heroines are great, and Roy is a fantastic main character. The villains are also well made, and the fight scenes are for sure one of the best aspects of the game.
I haven't read too many serious harem stories so I don't have many games to compare it to, but this one pulls it off very well. All the heroines gets enough screen time, they all have their own reasons for liking the MC and the harem doesn't feel forced. (My only complaint is the high amount of H-scenes... they really didn't need that many. 2-3 for each heroine would be fine, but instead there is like, 6 per heroine which is just a bit too much.)
 
Bloody Saga is an entertaining fantasy VN with good writing, epic action scenes and a decent amount of slice of life moments with the heroines. There is a good amount of focus on the romance between the MC and the knights, but enough weight is still put on the core story so that it doesn't become your standard charage love story. The setting and time period in which the story takes place is also a nice break from your standard VNs, and the voiced protagonist + the stunning art just makes the experience more enjoyable. Although the game has its darker moments, they fit into the story very well, and aren't sexualized pointlessly like in the first game. Overall this VN is a very enjoyable read, and I strongly recommend checking it out.

I finished this game the other day, and decided to write up a short blog post on it.
Ryuukishi Bloody † Saga is the "sequel" to Akabei Soft3's Ryakudatsusha no Inen, (though the only relevant connection is the main character, and it pretty much works as a standalone game tbh.) The game completely breaks away from the dark nukige-like feel the first game had, and shifts the genre completely into something rather light hearted. (Though it has some rather gore filled fight scenes here and there.) The art even changes completely, making it feel like a totally different game.
I made a post about the prequel a bit back, and the things I felt that game did wrong was handled very well in the sequel, making it blow my expectations away. For those interested in this game who don't like overly dark themed stories and therefore want to stay clear of the prequel, you should be fine playing the sequel only as long as you read a general summary of the first game. (There is a couple of smaller refrences to the first game in the sequel, though nothing major.)
For those interested, I wrote up a summary of the first game here. It doesn't cover absolutely everything, but it gives you the info you need to read the second game.
Bloody Saga starts off with Roy walking through the forest without a care in the world, headed for a city called Veludylun. However, on his way there he notices dark smoke rising from within the city walls, and he is stopped by a group of knights protecting the entrance. The city is in a state of emergency, as a massive dragon is attacking. This is apperantly not the first time this has happened, and as mortal weapons cannot harm the dragon because of its tough scales, the best the knights within the city can do is distract the dragon long enough until it leaves.

Seeing the people of the city in dire need of help, Roy volunteers to help out with taking care of the wounded, as well as rebuilding the parts of the city destroyed by the ruthless dragon's attack. Keeping his dark past locked away deep within his mind, Roy starts a new life in Veludylun. He befriends four female knights, (who were originally selected by the king as "guards" to keep an eye on the outsider,) and together with them he spends his days helping out rebuild the city, uncertain when the dragon will attack next. 

The story of the game is nice, although it takes a bit of time for it to pick up. The slice of life moments are more than welcome though, as they don't feel boring at all. (At least not to me.) The heroines are great, and Roy is a fantastic main character. The villains are also well made, and the fight scenes are for sure one of the best aspects of the game.
I haven't read too many serious harem stories so I don't have many games to compare it to, but this one pulls it off very well. All the heroines gets enough screen time, they all have their own reasons for liking the MC and the harem doesn't feel forced. (My only complaint is the high amount of H-scenes... they really didn't need that many. 2-3 for each heroine would be fine, but instead there is like, 6 per heroine which is just a bit too much.)
 
Bloody Saga is an entertaining fantasy VN with good writing, epic action scenes and a decent amount of slice of life moments with the heroines. There is a good amount of focus on the romance between the MC and the knights, but enough weight is still put on the core story so that it doesn't become your standard charage love story. The setting and time period in which the story takes place is also a nice break from your standard VNs, and the voiced protagonist + the stunning art just makes the experience more enjoyable. Although the game has its darker moments, they fit into the story very well, and aren't sexualized pointlessly like in the first game. Overall this VN is a very enjoyable read, and I strongly recommend checking it out.

Before I announce the VN of the Month, I'm going to go ahead and apologize to those who wanted me to play Honoguraki... to be blunt, I don't have the energy for it.  Ragnarok sucked me dry, and I need to get away from undead and demons for a while.  Moreover, I hate zombies in the first place (so many reasons), so I'd be unlikely to give a pleasant review or comment anyway.
Now... it is kind of startling how so many great games got packed into a single month.  December 2016 was a monster month for story-focused VNs, with a relative dearth of charage/moege (with only two released).  I played as much as I could, but after six games, including the monster known as Venus Blood Ragnarok, I feel drained and tired.  The main reason I don't deny the existence of charage utterly (other than the occasional shining diamond I find in the piles of icarabu shit) is because even I need a break from bloodshed and darkness sometimes.
There were three releases that had the potential to become VN of the Month this time around...
Akiyume Kukuru
Ryuukishi Bloody Saga
Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai!
Now, to be blunt, Ou no Mimi would be my first choice.  Why?  Because, without the art bigots interfering, it is the most solid of those three candidates by several degrees.  In fact, if this were six years ago, all things equal (including art), I would without hesitation have named it VN of the Month.  While AXL doesn't escape its own unique formula, there is a reason why this company is a consistent seller despite reusing character art and music constantly. 
However, we come to Ryuukishi, which is only a few steps behind story-wise and has the advantage of being an immensely creative story that doesn't fall back on tropes for the most part.  It also has a more modern art-style that is highly-detailed, illustrating battle scenes and some of the more shocking guro scenes in loving detail. 
Last of all, we have Akiyume Kukuru, which didn't fail to please as the third (and possibly final) game of Sumikko's 'Seasons' series.  As usual, it provides the kind of meta-science mystery combined with violent and sexual humor that the company has become infamous for.  For a certain type of reader, this VN is pure crack, though if you aren't the type it is aiming for, it will be a huge miss.
So what is the conclusion?  In the end it came down to Ryuukishi and Ou no Mimi.  I balanced Ou no Mimi's solid, well-narrated story against Ryuukishi's more innovative approach... and in the end I chose Ryuukishi Bloody Saga as VN of the Month December 2016.  While AXL's works are really 'at-home' for me, I felt that Ryuukishi will probably have a larger impact on the VN community as a whole in the long run... and they were dead even on how I enjoyed them. 
Now... look forward to VN of the Year 2016, which I probably won't finish considering until sometime next month.  Fortunately or unfortunately, 2016 was almost as good as 2014 and 2011 for VNs...

I wanted to wait until the year is over before I write my list for this year, but of course I haven't had the time to actually look at the December releases and now the year is over. Luckily, there isn't much interesting for me anyway.
Before we start, just let me mention some noteworthy December titles:
Venus Blood Ragnarok could be a nice game, but I don't really like the Venus Blood series, and as some kind of sequel it probably won't win me over anyway. I have played the trial of Meguru Sekai de Towanaru Chikai wo and it really didn't impress me. Looked like an even cheaper version of Izumo 4. And Izumo 4 was already a letdown last year. The RPG mechanics of Izumo 4 are very simple and Meguru Sekai de seems even simpler. But that is not all, contrary to Izumo 4, this time the game also looks pretty ugly! It that the reason why Yamamoto Kazue changed her name to  Yamamoto ☆ Kazue for this? Well, I probably will play it nonetheless because I don't like to judge something I haven't really played, but eh, not in the near future. That's it for December. The rest doesn't interest me or I already know it will be bad (You can't fool me Moonstone!). Did I just say I don't judge something I haven't played? Eh, whatever...
But now some honorable mentions of games that actually looked interesting but I haven't had the time to read them, so they won't be in my 2016 list:
Dungeons & Daimeiwaku: I've read the trial, but haven't found the time to read the actual game. I'm sure it's good but it's kind of demotivating for me to read an RPG without any gameplay, heh. Iwaihime: Ryukishi07 and horror should be exactly what I'm looking for but for some reason I have this untouched on my hdd for a year now. Maybe I miss the Ryukishi07-art, since it doesn't look as good with generic moeblobs. Trianthology: Now I have the art, but not a full Ryukishi07 game, haha. Still, I have to read this sometime soon. Kanojo ＊ Step: This could probably be the "Best Charage" of 2016 as far as I have seen it. The humor is great, something that's really missing in pretty much every other modern charage. It's a shame that the genre charage has such a low priority for me, so I haven't really read much of this VN so far. Now I mention some games people might expect in my list of 2016's best eroge, but I actually found them to be only mediocre:
Shi ni Iku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo: Yeah, I wasn't as excited about this as everyone else. I do not fetishize gore. I like death as an element of a thrilling story, but death in Nikuniku has no impact. There is no meaning in killing someone when they can't die. Baka Dakedo Chinchin Shaburu no Dake wa Jouzu na Chii-chan: This game has a Genre-Shift tag of 3.0 on vndb and some people claim it would be different than what you expect it to be.
Spoiler: It's exactly what it looks like! WTF are the people talking about? lol Maitetsu: Borefest and not even usable as a lolige. Really only interesting for train otakus.  
Now let's start with the list of maybe not necessarily the best but the most impressive eroge of 2016, for me at least:
Eroge of the Year: Natsu no Kusari
Best game without a doubt, there is no other contender here. If I would make a Top 5 of 2017, the second place would already be many, many levels under this one. It's so good (or all the other recent games are just so bad, lol).
I have already written walls of text in other threads about this game so I won't repeat myself here. I will just say that this game is exactly what I'm looking for when I read an eroge, the reason why I even started with this medium.
Great characterization and the perfect use of narration, music, visuals and voices makes this one of the most compelling short stories I have read in years.
 
Best NTR Eroge: Dearest Blue
The lack of elf is really showing and I certainly can't say that any LiLiM game is really good, but at least with Dearest Blue LiLiM improved on their formula and made it its best game so far.
We still have some obvious "Do you want to get NTR'd"-choices, but they are not as in-your-face as in previous titles. Some choices make you wonder what will actually happen if you go this route and that at least is an improvement. In some instances there is some believable drama and especially one route is good where you can cheer for both, the protagonist and the rival because both characters are likable. The main heroine is also well-characterized, being an independent and strong woman without going too bitchy or slutty.
Still, not everything is good. Pretty much every male character except the aforementioned one is a one-dimensional evil villain. The biggest problem however is that the story is build around some kind of NTR/death-game where all the players need to outwit each other ... but in the end there are no mind games or twists happening! Heck, even I could probably win this game because every other character is so bad at this, not having a plan or making retarded moves. What a disappointment! Read this for the relationship drama, not for the death game.
 
Best Modern Oldschool Eroge: Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think that the writing in many of the latest Mink-games is topnotch. Really, if Mink-games weren't conceptually so limited (being only nukige), they could be really great.
Why is that? Is it because Mink is such an old company that they still carry on old writing traditions which were established in the Golden Age of eroge? That at least would explain why Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is so good when it conceptually shouldn't be!
Don't misunderstand me, Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is not a good slave-training eroge. There is no real SLG gameplay here, instead the only choice the player has is to visit 1 of 20 locations every day hoping that some kind of event happens there. There is no indication which area you have to visit, neither in script nor in the interface, it's completely by chance. Save-scumming and blindly gathering events at its finest, huh.
But if you can look behind this (preferably with a walkthrough), you will find a game that feels like the late 90s. Mainly because this is a blatant clone of 99's Yakin Byoutou. It's pretty much "Night Shift School Girls". Aside from the setting that is now a school, we have the same kind of characters, the same storyline and the same development Yakin Byoutou had. And it's great, because that formula still works 17 years later! The ugly main character, who has just enough understanding of the human psyche to get what he wants, the pure maidens who fall into his traps, not because they are sluts but because they are believable corrupted, and the evil female mastermind who is probably even worse than the main character. It's beautiful. The nostalgia is strong with this one.
 
Best Dark and Edgy Eroge: Tokage no Shippo Kiri
I'm cheating here a bit because the game was released in November 2015. But since the fandisc was released in January last year which means the full experience was only available to us in 2016, I see it as 2016 game.
There is not much to say here, what Derg not already said. Games like this prove that even low-budget publisher can make good games, if they just try. CYCLET is not Black Cyc, but it tries nonetheless to be something special and succeeds in setting itself apart from all the other low budget publisher. Maybe that is the reason we only had one CYCLET game in 2016; they emphasize on quality, not quantity.
 
Best RPG: Dungeon of Regalias
Let's not talk about the story and the characters. They are terrible, like in every Astronauts Sirius game. But damn is the gameplay addicting and actually good. Like in, really, really good.
This is probably one of the best ero-dungeon crawler existing. They did everything right with this one. Hard difficulty available from start. Skills as "items" which can be equipped so you can change your build without any resetting of skill points like in other games. Monsters who all act differently thus forcing you to change your strategy and character builds and party constantly. Great game.
 
 
Best SRPG: Sankai Ou no Yubiwa
I'm probably the only one, but ... I actually liked 2016's Eushully game. Yeah, really. Ok, it wasn't really a good SRPG; it actually had many flaws, like being far too easy and exploitable and the routes being too similar to each other... but... I liked the concept. Having six main characters who all represent a different kind of approach to the Ero-RPG genre is really something I wish more games would do. I hate the good guy, the antihero and the maou archetype, and sadly most Eushully games have one of these three as their main character. But Sankai Ou has also three other, more interesting protagonists to choose from. For example, I always wanted the angels to win in an Eushully game, and finally I have the opportunity to do this because the obligatory fallen-angel storyline is already covered in the other routes. Nice.
 
Biggest disappointment: Extravaganza ~Mushigurui Hen~
I was so hyped for this one. The first true Black Cyc game after 5 years of absence. Written by Banya Izumi who we could trust with the task of continuing a beloved series, right? Right?
No, it's awful. This game turned out to be an abomination which is quite remarkable because Black Cyc already milked the Extravaganza series with bad sidestories back when Black Cyc was still good for the most part. And Mushigurui Hen is even worse than these cheap nukige spinoffs. At least with cheap nukige fandisc, we know we get something bad. Mushigurui Hen on the other hand could have been good. It could have been awesome. But it wasn't.
So what went wrong? You have these great characters with their epic background stories, but what do they do with them? Putting them in school, because school life is, as we all now, the most important thing ever. And if a character is too old for school, just make them into rich snobs whose only problem in life is being too old (meaning being 23 years old) and lamenting about not having the time to go to the cinema with friends because work (meaning being CEO and chilling all the day in the office).
And if that wasn't bad enough, they also retcon a character death because this character was very popular back then and we need him for funny slice of life scenes now, yay.
The most offending thing however is how this "sequel" actually takes place after the second arc of the original Extravaganza, which means before the last third of the original game. And all the important character events in the third arc which really were the heart of the Extravaganza story apparently don't take place in this timeline. Instead, we get inferior and meaningless drama with derailed characters in Mushigurui Hen which is apparently now the canon timeline. Hurray.
 
Biggest insult: Everything released by Akabei Soft 3
I'm not going into this now, but literally every AKB3 game this year greatly offended me, just as Silky's Plus' games did last year. Let's just say that AKB3 makes games which represent everything that's wrong with modern eroge and have nothing left of what made eroge once great. (I might write a post explaining this statement in the near future.)
It saddens me how popular these games are. A dark prospect for 2017.
 

This is an introductory post and since I probably don't have to introduce myself anymore (you already know me ), I guess I advertise my future blog texts instead.
Tyrviews are not reviews. Instead of writing reviews, I'm more interested in discussing and exploring the themes of an eroge and talking about all the related topics like the writing, the tropes or the history of eroge or the Japanese entertainment industry in general. I might also talk about anime, j-dorama, games, movies, books or JAVs.
I'm sure you will find something new or interesting when you read my articles. You may not necessarily agree with what I have to say (and if you find the strong urge to comment, please do so, and you can be sure I will respond), but I'm certain you will find at least some new ideas worth thinking about.
When I write about a certain topic I’m interested in, I'm often using specific products (which inspired me to think and write about this subject in the first place) and these will serve as an example to verify the points I make.
With that said, unless I explicitly state that a Tyrview contains spoilers, it won’t. However, I might give away some directions a certain game will take. Nothing, you wouldn’t also find on the official website, but if you are like me and you would rather read an eroge without any a priori knowledge, it might be better if you come back later after you have finished the game in question.
The first blog text will be about my favorite games of 2016. I also have an article about Black Cyc in the pipeline since I have recently finished most of their games and am now looking forward to their newest release this month. I will probably also write my impressions about some anime I recently watched which are worth talking about.
If there is anything you would like me to write about or you want to read my opinion on something, I will be open to suggestions.
I will end my introduction by showing you a picture of my bathroom, so you get some value out of this pointless blog post.
Please rate it, I think it's pretty kuso which I've chosen as the theme for my toilet room. Do you get it?
Thanks for tolerating me and happy new year~~ 

Visual Novel Translation Status (12/24/2016)
Okay, first of all merry Christmas to any reader who read this post here. The title for this week was akin of anime Spice and Wolf, except that for this week releases we have VN which had stock market premise and there's one with devil (With Rance) so I figured that I just make it stock and devil. If I may explain the comparison here, spice was quite valuable at Europe in the past and wolf was sometimes associate with devil. Coincidentally, the writer for stock market VN was also the writer for Spice and Wolf (Isuna Hasekura). And with that done, welcome to my VNTS Review which I wrote at Christmas Eve here (Duh).
This week, there's good release from Mangagamer and Sekai (Rance VI and World End Economica Episode 3). Maybe I'll try to talk about those two later, but as for other two releases I didn't knew about Apathy to be honest here (Nor did I pay attention to it to be more blunt here) other than apparently we'll had horror setting there. Also it was apparently some collection to compilation of three stories (Horror obviously). Another release was Creampie Festival, which from the title it was nukige and it was for android instead of usual PC (Good for anyone who like nukige and like to play game using phone as well I guess).
Oh, and by the way there's another release. It's Sakura Christmas Party which created by Winged Cloud that we love and knew to fill your Christmas with their 'quality' VN. As for the score, it was plummeted very badly in VNDB just as expected. By the way, about this game I'd remember that I made my AX 2017 commentary using title 'Sakura Christmas' back at July. Guess Winged Cloud was take the inspiration from my post lol (Although it was very easy to came up though if you speak about the title idea). I'm not played this by the way yet (And maybe never) and just knew it was already released from 4 days ago today.
For the updates, this week while both of Sekai and Fan Translation deliver usual, Mangagamer deliver batch of updates at this week other than usual release (Just treat those as Christmas prize from Mangagamer, okay?). As for other section, this week we had Libra progress which if I may said subjectively it was good. For more detail, right now Mikandi translated 85% of Aoi's route, 90% of Lycoris's route, and they already translated 30% of Aoi and Lycoris mini episode. And for Dies Irae Kickstarter, they managed to gather past 100,000 or to be exact was at 103,407 funds gathered.
While for Other section was at least had Libra and Dies Irae progressing, unfortunately I couldn't say the same for JAST. For more elaboration, I edited both of JAST this year released plan to TBA back at VNDB because apparently JAST still not had their activity in regard of those two yet or any news to be exact (Although I may missed something at JAST forum though). For more info, I edited both of Seinarukana Steam and Ryko to TBA and they planned to released it at this year (2016) which is almost end. In conclusion, there's no update from JAST at this week as usual, although I may praise their consistency for delay though lol.
Fan Translation
As for fan translation, first of all I don't watch closely in regard of progress for both of Ayakashi Gohan and Bad Medicine although I knew that both of those were otome though which I could care less here (Good luck to the translators though). Anyway, this week for the progress Ayakashi was at 89% translated and Bad Medicine was they managed to had 2 scipts translated since last week and planning to releasing partial patch for one route there (That's all I could tell for Bad Medicine).
For the rest here, let's do some round up here for the progress. This week we had Aokana's common route was at 44.23% translated; Tsui Yuri was at 80% retranslated, Majokoi was at 62.1% translated; Nocturnal Illusion was at 6.5% 2nd editing pass, and for Ushieta they translated 32% of it and for editing progress it was at 14% (The translator also state that they'll need to retranslated Airi's route). For last update but not the least, we had Loverable which had some significant progress (41.35% translated, 10.56% edited, 14.4% TLC-ed, and 72.88% image edited). That's all for usual roundup there, and if some people here interested with the Sono Hanabira 11 in English, there's a project out there and right now 101 out of 120 scripts was translated.
Sekai Project
In regard of JAST delay, while back at some time Akerou was sort of promised that there'll be 2016 release for Saku Saku, I think for now it would be delayed there although to be fair Sekai was never announced that they'll releasing Saku Saku at 2016 though, so there's that. Oh, and looking at Chrono Clock progress I heavily doubt that it'll be released at late January, more so if we looking at the progress per week there (It was translated at 71.42% translated at this week). Well, nothing we could do if Chrono Clock will be delayed in the future I guess once again. For the rest of Sekai's progress, there's Maitetsu was at 80.84% translated, Tensin Ranman was at 85.62% translated, and they had their 2nd secret project was at 41%. Also they add one more secret project there (4th one) which right now it was at 16% translated.
This week, Sekai was also released World End Economica episode 3. The premise was there's a world which apparently there's MC who attempted to do some stock trading. For more info the setting was at the moon which faced some rapid development after the first citizens was came from the Earth at 16 years ago. For more information, it was released in episodic release just like When They Cry series, only instead of 8 episode we got only 3 episode. The premise looks interesting there, although I'm not play this yet though to be honest (I might play this the future now that there's complete version). Once again the writer for this VN was also Spice and Wolf writer (Isuna Hasekura), and the particular anime was also had economy motif from what I'd understand.
That's all for Sekai Project section.
Mangagamer 
This week one of their highlight was Rance VI in English was released along with 5D. It was had some history with me at least, because back at 2015 I was one of the people who disappointed with the delay there so much that I was did some inappropriate action when I'd edited VNDB entry Back there Arunaru was already translated 88% of it). That's all in the past though, and at least they could play Rance VI in English after one year delay there. Oh, and they released it along with 5D by the way. For the gameplay there, 5D was some sort of luck based while Rance VI was some sort of dungeon crawler RPG like Etrian Oddysey. According to Moogy, this is one of best Rance games alongside with Kichikuou and Sengoku. Oh, and if some of you wonder whether if you need to play the prequels or not, I would said just look older Rance games LP because the graphic was quite out dated to understand the story. And if I may say may opinion in regard of older Rance games, 3 was had the most epic story while 4 was had improved gameplay. For last note, if you didn't like pervert and selfish MC just don't play Rance there.
Other than Rance, this week Mangagamer also announced that they'll released Da Capo 3 at January 20th. If some of older member from this community read this, surely some of them could recall of how Aaeru was attempted to translated Da Capo 3 using some divisive method to said it lightly. That's all I could said for now, and for the premise once again it's only usual Da Capo with same setting if we look at VNDB, although there's some wrap up from 2 though at the end according to some review that I'd read (It's still mostly charage though fro anyone else who wonder if the story will be take a different turn). As for now, I'm still attempted to play the demo although I think it's pretty much like the anime if the demo was covered the prologue arc only (The anime was only cover prologue arc to be exact with some mix up).
Other than one big release and one planned big release, this week once again Mangagamer also gave some updates as their gift. For the roundup, here goes
Boukaku was at 46% translated Hapymaher was at 62% translated and 45% edited Sorcery Joker was at 66% translated Fata Morgana fandisc was at 405 translated Maggot Bait was at 13% translated (I still don't know if Kouryuu using his bucket or not yet by the way) Pygmalion was finishing beta testing Kuroinu was starting work at Chapter 2 Evangile W was at 82% translated and 64% edited That's all for Mangagamer's updates there. And if some people wonder about Sona-Nyl, Mangagamer stated that they still working at it in their Curious Cat. Hopefully we could see the progress from Sona-Nyl later at Mangagamer progress page.
That's all for this week, and merry Christmas. See you again next week, or perhaps to be more appropriate next year.

Ryuukishi is the sequel to Ryakudatsusha no In'en, which was released last month... or rather, Ryakudatsusha is a prelude/prequel to this game.  However, the fundamental nature of the game has changed greatly.  For one thing, this VN lacks the constant rape and mutilation scenes that were so a part of Ryakudatsusha...
... well not entirely.  There is only one rape scene, and there are a few guro scenes.  However, those scenes are not nearly as dominant as the ones in Ryakudatsusha.  For those who liked the prelude, this game might be a bit of a shock to the system.
Anyway, this VN is based some time after the events in Ryakudatsusha, and Roy's manner and appearance have changed greatly.  The grim adolescent of the first game has become a smiling young wandering apothecary, and his sword is now no longer in evidence.  The setting is in a walled city at the foot of a mountain where a fire dragon lairs.  Despite attacks by the dragon at irregular intervals, the city has thrived for several centuries, and its knights have systematized the process of sacrificing their lives to draw the dragon away from the civilians, knowing they can do nothing else. 
The tone of this game, despite its frequently bloody/gory events, is far milder than Ryakudatsusha.  There is some slice-of-life, which is mostly used for deepening the connection to the setting and heroines, as well as progressing the story.  There are also some seriously good fights in this game, as Roy sometimes is forced to show his old skills in order to protect the four female knights who serve as the harem/heroines for the game (yes, it is a harem, lol). 
The actual progression of the game is kinetic, with all the choices merely creating changes in individual scenes, rather than the story itself.  The setting itself retains the darkness of Ryakudatsusha, while leavening the blood-soaked dough that is this particular fantasy world with lighter and gentler moments.

Visual Novel Translation Status (12/17/2016)
This is definitely not the review from Persona 11, because ATLUS just recently released Persona 5 in Japan. To be exact, this title was reflected to 11eyes and I think I'd found many similarities to Persona series (At least to 3 and 4) after playing this for a while. With that, let's get to the main business there (VNTS Review duh).
Okay, this week there's definitely surprise from fan translation segment. Namely the release of 11eyes Complete translation patch and turn out that 11eyes was Denwalts secret project. To tell the truth, I kind of doubt his project earlier because his portfolio was only Koi Iro and cancelled AliveZ which both of those were quite mediocre according to VNDB. But this time he manage to surprised us with the release of 11eyes once again, although he was try to slip some hint though back at Eroge Games forum (The project was one of 'cursed' project). Anyway, I think I'll try to tell the story about 11 eyes later.
As for my comment for other three releases, first of all let me state that once again I'd didn't find that both of Grisaia and Majikoi side story was the one that I'd looking forward the most (Feel free to get that though if you was either of Grisaia or Majikoi fan (And perhaps both as well). Although for Majikoi I'd find out that the robot girl was quite good looking though. For Melody (Grisaia side story), the premise looks like Yuuji will do some sort of escort mission to some important man daughter. And for another release, the premise was quite ridiculous once again, but then again it could be interest some people who interested in kyonyuu Japanese god forming an idol group. Keep in mind that's only my current impression in regard of MoeNovel's release so it could be change in the future. Oh, by the way there's some post from ANN which mistakenly said that MoeNovel created If My Heart Had Wings (MoeNovel's role was only as publisher, while the mentioned game was created by the main company Pulltop).
This week for Sekai was mostly from their usual update, although back at their tracker apparently there's some error in regard of Bokukotsu which for the progress it was back at 0% (The real progress for Bokukotsu was at 21.71% translated according to VNTS). For the usual updates here, Chrono Clock was at 71.25% translated, Maitetsu was at 78.8% translated, and Tensin Ranman was at 82.07% translated. For one more news, Wagahigh was attempted to get the Greenlight at Steam and Sekai was planning to release this at early 2017. That's all for Sekai Project roundup here.
For Other section here, there's some big Kickstarter happening but first of all let's do some roundup here from few updates. There's two releases from this section (LoveKami and Melody) and I'd already commented on those two. As for other update, if you interested to get Miniature Garden officially, you could also try Mangagamer there because they also add pre-order for that according to their blog post (It'll be released at March 2nd by the way). Here's Mangagamer page in case some of you want proof. Oh, and also Frontwing confirmed that they also working for Island translation right now (By the way, the writer for Island was also the writer for Himawari).
The big news for this section was obviously Dies Irae Kickstarter was begin. Just like Prefundia said, the goal was indeed at 160,000. And right now they managed to gathering the fund at almost 72,000 (71,987 for more detail currently) with 26 days left before the Kickstarter end. For now I could only said that this is definitely more succesful compared to Root Double kickstarter of course at least if we compared it from the first day (Root Double was only managed gather around 20,000 iirc while Dies Irae managed to gather more than 50,000 at the first day). Let's just wait and see here, and I think this Kickstarter could be successful although there's could be something unexpected happen at the future.
In Fan Translation segment, it had definitely very surprising release. But first let me to do some roundup here. For the roundup of this week, we had Majokoi at 60.7% translated and 52% edited; Aokana Common Route was at 38% translated; Tsui Yuri was at halfway retranslated and fully edited for the first pass; Loverable was at 38.57% translated, 9.86% edited, and 69.61% image edited; and Sukiuso was at 40.4% translated. Outside of the usual progress, there's also sad news in regard of Tsuki Yori translation in which the project was put on hold because of the translator real life issue. Hope the best for the translator there in real life.
For the last but DEFINITELY not the least, there's 11eyes release. For a little history there's old translation project back at around 2011 with the goal to translate 11eyes. Also according to some old post this is one of most requested VN to Amaterasu Translation to be translated (It was some kind of poll). Of course now that Denwalts released 11eyes it means that the old group translator was to busy to translate so much that the project was stalled (And tgat's after the group lost previous translator). Well, what I knew for now is that we could finally play 11eyes in English. Have fun for playing 11eyes for reader out there.
Thst's all for this week, and see you next week.

Some people on this forum already know me as a pretty big Cyclet fanboy. They make some pretty good dark games, which is right up my alley. Tokage no Shippo Kiri is by far my favorite Cyclet game to date, and in this blog entry I'll be talking a bit about why.
I found out about this through some people on Discord, and after looking through some CGs from the game, I was rather confused when I was told this is a pure love story. That made very little sense to me, which just sparked my interest even more. After having read the game, I have to say I agree; this is definitely primarily a love story, though a rather tragic one at that. I will be mainly talking about the first few hours of the game in this blog post, then reflect on why I like the game and what it does right, so it's pretty much spoiler free. What you see here is just the introduction to the story that you see after a little bit of reading, so the major plot twists and such is not spoiled here, should you ever feel like reading the game.
 
The title of the game plays a very central role in the story, and it does so almost immediately. Tokage no Shippo Kiri = (rough TL) Cutting the lizard's tail.
The main character, Shuu, is an honor student. Among the smartest people in school, and certainly among the most diligent, Shuu seems like a rather normal guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. He doesn't come in late, he does all his homework and places among the top students on tests. However, this story is meant to show you that although people might seem totally normal on the outside, they could be just a single step from breaking on the inside.
As Shuu ends up being late one day, he starts running to school in order to make it in time. On his way though, he ends up stepping on something. Upon looking down, he spots a lizard with its tail ripped off. However, the lizard doesn't cower in pain, scream or anything that a human would in a situation where their limbs are ripped off them. Instead, it completely calmly runs away, fleeing from danger, completely unfazed by the fact that a portion of its body is missing. As he sees this, Shuu breaks. Something inside him is stirred, and he wonders, "is it possible for humans to regenerate their limbs like a lizard?" Suddenly, very interested in how exactly lizards can do this, he starts researching anatomy, biology and such extensively. Every single day he goes to the library to read up on immortality, regeneration of limbs, and anything he can come across slightly related to learn how it works. Shuu concludes that the only way to figure this out though, is through practical experiments. Now, at this point this probably sounds like it will turn into a guro fest, but it's not quite how things goes. This is like I said before, primarily a love story, (although the game has a decent amount of guro, it's not quite the same as other guro games in that regard). Anyways, enter Kanau.
Kanau is a girl who is totally in love with Shuu. She is so madly in love with him, it's a bit confusing really, as she hasn't actually talked much with him before at all. At first, you don't really get any explanation for this. She just loves him, and wants to be with him. She eventually approaches Shuu, and he politely agrees to letting her help him with his research. The two start reading books together in the library, although Kanau of course has no idea what kind of research this really is. Two other students eventually joins in on this as well, and the four of them come to library every day to research. Each one of them have their own motive for doing this, and the way the story keeps their reasoning hidden until the later segments is very well executed, even for the main character Shuu.
Leaving the other two on the side, let's talk about Kanau and Shuu's romance. (The other two have rather minimal roles in the main route, but bigger parts in their own routes that are connected to the main route later on.) Shuu and Kanau start to get along well, and soon enough they both develop romantic feelings for one another. (Well, Kanau already had these, like I mentioned, but it becomes mutual at least.)
The thing is though, as the reader you really don't know whether Shuu's feelings are genuine, or if he is just using Kanau for his potential experiments. As I was reading the game I was at the edge of my seat the entire time. Exactly what is it that Shuu wants, what is fueling him, and what is going to happen next? And likewise, Kanau's motives were totally mysterious to me as well. Sure, she loves him, but why? To be frank, you really don't get what is going on for a long time. Though, all of the answers will come in due time.
Shuu talks Kanau into helping him with an experiment, though she is not the test subject; he wants to test this on himself. Shuu wants to know, "can humans grow back their limbs? Just how far can the human body be pushed when it comes to healing itself?"
And so, he decides to have Kanau cut off his finger, and then observes the result. (Don't worry, not a bloody CG. I won't link any of those ) 
Needless to say, Kanau is not a big fan of this idea, but due to her extreme attatchement to Shuu, there is no way she is saying no. Big parts of the game is told from Kanau's point of view, and deals with her conflicted emotions. She hates the idea of Shuu being in pain, but hates the idea of Shuu rejecting her because she won't help him with his research even more.
 
After this, things keep escalating and the characters are forced to face their own mortality, quite literally. The truth is that no matter how you try to spin it, human beings are very fragile creatures, both mentally and physically, and you can't defy the laws of nature. This is the main point the game tries to get across, at least that's how it seemed to me. Shuu and Kanau's romantic story is a rather messy one, and this game really brings out loads of different emotions in the reader. I think a big misconception with dark themed stories is that they must always go a bit over the top, so that we can separate them from reality. However, Tokage no Shippo Kiri doesn't do that at all. It's as realistic as you can get with a story like this, and that makes the impact it has on the reader even stronger. 
The game is very psychologically straining, as you are put into the shoes of these characters in rather gruesome situations. I felt like certain choices in the game were very hard to make, as I was honestly afraid of the result they would lead to. So far, this is the only guro game that has made me feel a connection to the characters in that way. I mean, most of the time, story and writing pulls you in, but the surreal and rather "silly" settings if you will, completely separates you from seeing the story as being anything close to reality. (Like Maggot Baits and Nikuniku. Both games are fantastic, but you don't feel like what you are reading is reality, which makes it easier to stomach the dark and gruesome situations.)
Of course, it's not like Tokage no Shippo Kiri makes you think it's based on a true story or anything, and 1 route in specific is rather... dumb to be completely honest. It feels like that route was just put there to please guro fans, and it serves little importance to the plot, but still retains some value so that you can't quite skip it either. That was honestly one of the reasons why this game didn't get a higher rating from me. Without that route, I'd be more inclined to go closer to the 10/10 than my current 8.4 rating of it. I like guro in nukige settings too, but I don't like having it crammed into a game that quite honestly felt like a very serious story. The guro in the other 2 routes is used in a way that makes sense to the plot, because of the mentality of the characters and such. Although the same point can be made for the route in question, I think it was purposely just stuffed in there to make the game appeal more to the guro crowd to draw them in. I won't mention which route this is, and I'll let you find that on your own if you are going to read the game.
This does bring me to the second part of the game I did not like too much, and that was the sheer amount of H-scenes. I never thought I'd be saying that about a game like this, but it's true. The game does put some H-scenes in situations where they honestly don't really need to be. Sometimes the scenes make perfect sense, as many situations in the game stirs up a mix of different emotions in the characters and that makes the scenes feel fitting. But at other times, they just really don't need to be there at all. This game isn't a full on nukige, though it's quite similar in certain traits, and Cyclet might have been trying to flip it a bit more in that direction than I want to admit. Still, the game's story is very good, and the amount of H-scenes hardly changes that fact.
 
A few last words about the game. It's told in three routes, though Kanau's route is the true one, and the other two take place assuming you have already read Kanau's route, (so if you are going to read this, read Kanau's route first.) All three of them tie into each other, and only by reading all three will you truly understand everything. If you only read one, you will be lacking key information to piece the entire puzzle together. There is one route which has less of a purpose than the other two, like I said, but you should still read all three if you want all the answers to the questions that might be swirling around in your head when you read this.
Tokage no Shippo Kiri is a very good psychological game, about a romance between people on the verge of breaking, and them facing the harsh truth of their own mortality. It's definitely not a game everyone will enjoy, but for the people who like darker games with a more bitter taste to them, this is a very good choice. If you can't stomach gore and such, it's not really advised to touch this game.

Some people on this forum already know me as a pretty big Cyclet fanboy. They make some pretty good dark games, which is right up my alley. Tokage no Shippo Kiri is by far my favorite Cyclet game to date, and in this blog entry I'll be talking a bit about why.
I found out about this through some people on Discord, and after looking through some CGs from the game, I was rather confused when I was told this is a pure love story. That made very little sense to me, which just sparked my interest even more. After having read the game, I have to say I agree; this is definitely primarily a love story, though a rather tragic one at that. I will be mainly talking about the first few hours of the game in this blog post, then reflect on why I like the game and what it does right, so it's pretty much spoiler free. What you see here is just the introduction to the story that you see after a little bit of reading, so the major plot twists and such is not spoiled here, should you ever feel like reading the game.
 
The title of the game plays a very central role in the story, and it does so almost immediately. Tokage no Shippo Kiri = (rough TL) Cutting the lizard's tail.
The main character, Shuu, is an honor student. Among the smartest people in school, and certainly among the most diligent, Shuu seems like a rather normal guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. He doesn't come in late, he does all his homework and places among the top students on tests. However, this story is meant to show you that although people might seem totally normal on the outside, they could be just a single step from breaking on the inside.
As Shuu ends up being late one day, he starts running to school in order to make it in time. On his way though, he ends up stepping on something. Upon looking down, he spots a lizard with its tail ripped off. However, the lizard doesn't cower in pain, scream or anything that a human would in a situation where their limbs are ripped off them. Instead, it completely calmly runs away, fleeing from danger, completely unfazed by the fact that a portion of its body is missing. As he sees this, Shuu breaks. Something inside him is stirred, and he wonders, "is it possible for humans to regenerate their limbs like a lizard?" Suddenly, very interested in how exactly lizards can do this, he starts researching anatomy, biology and such extensively. Every single day he goes to the library to read up on immortality, regeneration of limbs, and anything he can come across slightly related to learn how it works. Shuu concludes that the only way to figure this out though, is through practical experiments. Now, at this point this probably sounds like it will turn into a guro fest, but it's not quite how things goes. This is like I said before, primarily a love story, (although the game has a decent amount of guro, it's not quite the same as other guro games in that regard). Anyways, enter Kanau.
Kanau is a girl who is totally in love with Shuu. She is so madly in love with him, it's a bit confusing really, as she hasn't actually talked much with him before at all. At first, you don't really get any explanation for this. She just loves him, and wants to be with him. She eventually approaches Shuu, and he politely agrees to letting her help him with his research. The two start reading books together in the library, although Kanau of course has no idea what kind of research this really is. Two other students eventually joins in on this as well, and the four of them come to library every day to research. Each one of them have their own motive for doing this, and the way the story keeps their reasoning hidden until the later segments is very well executed, even for the main character Shuu.
Leaving the other two on the side, let's talk about Kanau and Shuu's romance. (The other two have rather minimal roles in the main route, but bigger parts in their own routes that are connected to the main route later on.) Shuu and Kanau start to get along well, and soon enough they both develop romantic feelings for one another. (Well, Kanau already had these, like I mentioned, but it becomes mutual at least.)
The thing is though, as the reader you really don't know whether Shuu's feelings are genuine, or if he is just using Kanau for his potential experiments. As I was reading the game I was at the edge of my seat the entire time. Exactly what is it that Shuu wants, what is fueling him, and what is going to happen next? And likewise, Kanau's motives were totally mysterious to me as well. Sure, she loves him, but why? To be frank, you really don't get what is going on for a long time. Though, all of the answers will come in due time.
Shuu talks Kanau into helping him with an experiment, though she is not the test subject; he wants to test this on himself. Shuu wants to know, "can humans grow back their limbs? Just how far can the human body be pushed when it comes to healing itself?"
And so, he decides to have Kanau cut off his finger, and then observes the result. (Don't worry, not a bloody CG. I won't link any of those ) 
Needless to say, Kanau is not a big fan of this idea, but due to her extreme attatchement to Shuu, there is no way she is saying no. Big parts of the game is told from Kanau's point of view, and deals with her conflicted emotions. She hates the idea of Shuu being in pain, but hates the idea of Shuu rejecting her because she won't help him with his research even more.
 
After this, things keep escalating and the characters are forced to face their own mortality, quite literally. The truth is that no matter how you try to spin it, human beings are very fragile creatures, both mentally and physically, and you can't defy the laws of nature. This is the main point the game tries to get across, at least that's how it seemed to me. Shuu and Kanau's romantic story is a rather messy one, and this game really brings out loads of different emotions in the reader. I think a big misconception with dark themed stories is that they must always go a bit over the top, so that we can separate them from reality. However, Tokage no Shippo Kiri doesn't do that at all. It's as realistic as you can get with a story like this, and that makes the impact it has on the reader even stronger. 
The game is very psychologically straining, as you are put into the shoes of these characters in rather gruesome situations. I felt like certain choices in the game were very hard to make, as I was honestly afraid of the result they would lead to. So far, this is the only guro game that has made me feel a connection to the characters in that way. I mean, most of the time, story and writing pulls you in, but the surreal and rather "silly" settings if you will, completely separates you from seeing the story as being anything close to reality. (Like Maggot Baits and Nikuniku. Both games are fantastic, but you don't feel like what you are reading is reality, which makes it easier to stomach the dark and gruesome situations.)
Of course, it's not like Tokage no Shippo Kiri makes you think it's based on a true story or anything, and 1 route in specific is rather... dumb to be completely honest. It feels like that route was just put there to please guro fans, and it serves little importance to the plot, but still retains some value so that you can't quite skip it either. That was honestly one of the reasons why this game didn't get a higher rating from me. Without that route, I'd be more inclined to go closer to the 10/10 than my current 8.4 rating of it. I like guro in nukige settings too, but I don't like having it crammed into a game that quite honestly felt like a very serious story. The guro in the other 2 routes is used in a way that makes sense to the plot, because of the mentality of the characters and such. Although the same point can be made for the route in question, I think it was purposely just stuffed in there to make the game appeal more to the guro crowd to draw them in. I won't mention which route this is, and I'll let you find that on your own if you are going to read the game.
This does bring me to the second part of the game I did not like too much, and that was the sheer amount of H-scenes. I never thought I'd be saying that about a game like this, but it's true. The game does put some H-scenes in situations where they honestly don't really need to be. Sometimes the scenes make perfect sense, as many situations in the game stirs up a mix of different emotions in the characters and that makes the scenes feel fitting. But at other times, they just really don't need to be there at all. This game isn't a full on nukige, though it's quite similar in certain traits, and Cyclet might have been trying to flip it a bit more in that direction than I want to admit. Still, the game's story is very good, and the amount of H-scenes hardly changes that fact.
 
A few last words about the game. It's told in three routes, though Kanau's route is the true one, and the other two take place assuming you have already read Kanau's route, (so if you are going to read this, read Kanau's route first.) All three of them tie into each other, and only by reading all three will you truly understand everything. If you only read one, you will be lacking key information to piece the entire puzzle together. There is one route which has less of a purpose than the other two, like I said, but you should still read all three if you want all the answers to the questions that might be swirling around in your head when you read this.
Tokage no Shippo Kiri is a very good psychological game, about a romance between people on the verge of breaking, and them facing the harsh truth of their own mortality. It's definitely not a game everyone will enjoy, but for the people who like darker games with a more bitter taste to them, this is a very good choice. If you can't stomach gore and such, it's not really advised to touch this game.

Some people on this forum already know me as a pretty big Cyclet fanboy. They make some pretty good dark games, which is right up my alley. Tokage no Shippo Kiri is by far my favorite Cyclet game to date, and in this blog entry I'll be talking a bit about why.
I found out about this through some people on Discord, and after looking through some CGs from the game, I was rather confused when I was told this is a pure love story. That made very little sense to me, which just sparked my interest even more. After having read the game, I have to say I agree; this is definitely primarily a love story, though a rather tragic one at that. I will be mainly talking about the first few hours of the game in this blog post, then reflect on why I like the game and what it does right, so it's pretty much spoiler free. What you see here is just the introduction to the story that you see after a little bit of reading, so the major plot twists and such is not spoiled here, should you ever feel like reading the game.
 
The title of the game plays a very central role in the story, and it does so almost immediately. Tokage no Shippo Kiri = (rough TL) Cutting the lizard's tail.
The main character, Shuu, is an honor student. Among the smartest people in school, and certainly among the most diligent, Shuu seems like a rather normal guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. He doesn't come in late, he does all his homework and places among the top students on tests. However, this story is meant to show you that although people might seem totally normal on the outside, they could be just a single step from breaking on the inside.
As Shuu ends up being late one day, he starts running to school in order to make it in time. On his way though, he ends up stepping on something. Upon looking down, he spots a lizard with its tail ripped off. However, the lizard doesn't cower in pain, scream or anything that a human would in a situation where their limbs are ripped off them. Instead, it completely calmly runs away, fleeing from danger, completely unfazed by the fact that a portion of its body is missing. As he sees this, Shuu breaks. Something inside him is stirred, and he wonders, "is it possible for humans to regenerate their limbs like a lizard?" Suddenly, very interested in how exactly lizards can do this, he starts researching anatomy, biology and such extensively. Every single day he goes to the library to read up on immortality, regeneration of limbs, and anything he can come across slightly related to learn how it works. Shuu concludes that the only way to figure this out though, is through practical experiments. Now, at this point this probably sounds like it will turn into a guro fest, but it's not quite how things goes. This is like I said before, primarily a love story, (although the game has a decent amount of guro, it's not quite the same as other guro games in that regard). Anyways, enter Kanau.
Kanau is a girl who is totally in love with Shuu. She is so madly in love with him, it's a bit confusing really, as she hasn't actually talked much with him before at all. At first, you don't really get any explanation for this. She just loves him, and wants to be with him. She eventually approaches Shuu, and he politely agrees to letting her help him with his research. The two start reading books together in the library, although Kanau of course has no idea what kind of research this really is. Two other students eventually joins in on this as well, and the four of them come to library every day to research. Each one of them have their own motive for doing this, and the way the story keeps their reasoning hidden until the later segments is very well executed, even for the main character Shuu.
Leaving the other two on the side, let's talk about Kanau and Shuu's romance. (The other two have rather minimal roles in the main route, but bigger parts in their own routes that are connected to the main route later on.) Shuu and Kanau start to get along well, and soon enough they both develop romantic feelings for one another. (Well, Kanau already had these, like I mentioned, but it becomes mutual at least.)
The thing is though, as the reader you really don't know whether Shuu's feelings are genuine, or if he is just using Kanau for his potential experiments. As I was reading the game I was at the edge of my seat the entire time. Exactly what is it that Shuu wants, what is fueling him, and what is going to happen next? And likewise, Kanau's motives were totally mysterious to me as well. Sure, she loves him, but why? To be frank, you really don't get what is going on for a long time. Though, all of the answers will come in due time.
Shuu talks Kanau into helping him with an experiment, though she is not the test subject; he wants to test this on himself. Shuu wants to know, "can humans grow back their limbs? Just how far can the human body be pushed when it comes to healing itself?"
And so, he decides to have Kanau cut off his finger, and then observes the result. (Don't worry, not a bloody CG. I won't link any of those ) 
Needless to say, Kanau is not a big fan of this idea, but due to her extreme attatchement to Shuu, there is no way she is saying no. Big parts of the game is told from Kanau's point of view, and deals with her conflicted emotions. She hates the idea of Shuu being in pain, but hates the idea of Shuu rejecting her because she won't help him with his research even more.
 
After this, things keep escalating and the characters are forced to face their own mortality, quite literally. The truth is that no matter how you try to spin it, human beings are very fragile creatures, both mentally and physically, and you can't defy the laws of nature. This is the main point the game tries to get across, at least that's how it seemed to me. Shuu and Kanau's romantic story is a rather messy one, and this game really brings out loads of different emotions in the reader. I think a big misconception with dark themed stories is that they must always go a bit over the top, so that we can separate them from reality. However, Tokage no Shippo Kiri doesn't do that at all. It's as realistic as you can get with a story like this, and that makes the impact it has on the reader even stronger. 
The game is very psychologically straining, as you are put into the shoes of these characters in rather gruesome situations. I felt like certain choices in the game were very hard to make, as I was honestly afraid of the result they would lead to. So far, this is the only guro game that has made me feel a connection to the characters in that way. I mean, most of the time, story and writing pulls you in, but the surreal and rather "silly" settings if you will, completely separates you from seeing the story as being anything close to reality. (Like Maggot Baits and Nikuniku. Both games are fantastic, but you don't feel like what you are reading is reality, which makes it easier to stomach the dark and gruesome situations.)
Of course, it's not like Tokage no Shippo Kiri makes you think it's based on a true story or anything, and 1 route in specific is rather... dumb to be completely honest. It feels like that route was just put there to please guro fans, and it serves little importance to the plot, but still retains some value so that you can't quite skip it either. That was honestly one of the reasons why this game didn't get a higher rating from me. Without that route, I'd be more inclined to go closer to the 10/10 than my current 8.4 rating of it. I like guro in nukige settings too, but I don't like having it crammed into a game that quite honestly felt like a very serious story. The guro in the other 2 routes is used in a way that makes sense to the plot, because of the mentality of the characters and such. Although the same point can be made for the route in question, I think it was purposely just stuffed in there to make the game appeal more to the guro crowd to draw them in. I won't mention which route this is, and I'll let you find that on your own if you are going to read the game.
This does bring me to the second part of the game I did not like too much, and that was the sheer amount of H-scenes. I never thought I'd be saying that about a game like this, but it's true. The game does put some H-scenes in situations where they honestly don't really need to be. Sometimes the scenes make perfect sense, as many situations in the game stirs up a mix of different emotions in the characters and that makes the scenes feel fitting. But at other times, they just really don't need to be there at all. This game isn't a full on nukige, though it's quite similar in certain traits, and Cyclet might have been trying to flip it a bit more in that direction than I want to admit. Still, the game's story is very good, and the amount of H-scenes hardly changes that fact.
 
A few last words about the game. It's told in three routes, though Kanau's route is the true one, and the other two take place assuming you have already read Kanau's route, (so if you are going to read this, read Kanau's route first.) All three of them tie into each other, and only by reading all three will you truly understand everything. If you only read one, you will be lacking key information to piece the entire puzzle together. There is one route which has less of a purpose than the other two, like I said, but you should still read all three if you want all the answers to the questions that might be swirling around in your head when you read this.
Tokage no Shippo Kiri is a very good psychological game, about a romance between people on the verge of breaking, and them facing the harsh truth of their own mortality. It's definitely not a game everyone will enjoy, but for the people who like darker games with a more bitter taste to them, this is a very good choice. If you can't stomach gore and such, it's not really advised to touch this game.

This VN is Akabeisoft3's latest VN, adding yet another genre to that company's list.  To be straight, this is a guro-rape dark fantasy similar to Maggot Baits in atmosphere (albeit not as extreme). 
The protagonist, Roy, starts out as a shota living happily with his family.  However, one day bandits, led by a psychopath named Ix, attack the village, raping and murdering the women, including his mother and older sister.  He himself is raped by the leader's wife as well as her shota slaves. 
Surprisingly, he doesn't break, and he swears revenge against the bandit group... and joins them. 
To be honest, I don't have much in the way of positive emotions about this game.  It isn't my genre and it isn't to my tastes.  While I gained something from Maggot Baits' 'good' ending, this VN didn't leave me feeling like there were any hidden gems in the torrent of darkness.  Given a choice, I would never go back to this VN under any circumstances.  In terms of quality, both visual and writing, it is impressive for such a short work (three hours of play), but, as I said, it didn't have anything I was seeking.
However, for people who like this kind of thing, it will probably be pure crack...

Since this week had no noteworthy progress being made, I decided to do this instead of a regular update and splitting percentages.
The Future
Current Projects
Let’s talk about release dates. Note that these are only estimation based on pure calculations and logic and will not be final nor necessary truthful under any circumstances.
As I’ve stated before, I would’ve fancied this project finishing before end of the year. Now, I’m sure the editing and QC will finish before that, but I’m not so sure about the proofreading. It could be at 75% at most, but in all seriousness, that’s as far as it’s going to get, I’m afraid.
So, according to my estimations, Biman -1- will most likely release in mid to late January, most likely.
 
Then, Biman -2.5-.
As much as I’d want for the translation to finish in 2016, I do think such an event is rather unlikely.
If all goes well, the translation should finish around at the same time as Biman -1- releases.
As for the full release, probably mid-year or sooner, but that’s a really rough estimation, so don’t quote me on that.
 
Future Projects
As much as I’d like to start a new project right after Biman -2.5-, I’m most likely going take a short hiatus from translating, so be wary of that.
As for actual, I have a few in mind, but I’ll disclose information from those after these two will be out, in the same time as my hiatus.
 
My thoughts on Biman -4-
As you may or may not know, there’s a new Biman game on the horizon, and I’m quite excited for it.
It’ll be a game with a trap protagonist and it’s been a pretty long time since I played a Trap VN, but it’ll be a very nice change of pace from what I’ve been reading recently. As for the whole story, I’m more or less expecting something along the lines of the first Biman with some kind of S/M relationship.
As for the name, it does set some nice undertones it might have, a rough translation being “A Girl’s Crime and Punishment”.
At this point, there’s really quite little I can speculate about, but I do wish for something more akin to the first game in the series, but we’ll have to wait and see, and I hope it doesn’t try to be too many things at once and just fall flat on its arse.
As for translating it, well, it’s a possibility and I’ll leave it at that.
See you next week, everyone.

Visual Novel Translation Status (11/26/2016)
I knew that the title for this week was quite confusing at that, and sorry for being very late here. I'll just explained the title on PS later, and let me try to talk about this week VNTS.
This week, there were seven releases like VNTS state, although for Shuffle to be honest I'm not following close enough here except at least I knew it was like Dracu Riot patch situation ie released and then deleted from the Steam (I might be wrong here though). As for Steins Gate, no comment other than Nitroplus started to milking Steins Gate it seems and since it was for console I could care less here (But then again it might be good for anyone else who want more Steins Gate). As for Harakano, good for pregnancy fetish I suppose (Congratulations for the release of full patch though). While for Muv Luv 18+ I could care less here, at least Japanese School Life take my interest a little bit, if only because of Risa Taneda there as seiyuu once again (The premise was just like Go Go Nippon).
Other than those above, this week there were two releases for yuri fan. Nashville looks like Highway Blossom I think, only with blue instead of orange color although both of those were yuri on journey though. And for Sono Hanabira, once again instead of one couple we had like three couple there and we could explore each couple, so I think it was quite interesting. As for mine, I played the demo and apparently the demo were had some limitation compared to full version. But overall I think it was good enouh although the soundtrack was recycled from older Sono Hanabira (It was inevitable I guess). To anyone else who already owned that, have fun for playing that.
Sekai Project this week was only doing their usual mostly if we ONLY talk about the update here. For the roundup here we had Chrono Clock at 65.22%, Maitetsu was at 66%, Bokukotsu was at 17% translated, and Princess Knight Chapter 2 was at 98.27% translated (I admit that this week once again Maitetsu saw some crazy jump). Oh, and of course there's unusual one here. For the first unusual one, we had Kanonana which just recently announced back at Atlanta starting the translation and right now it was at 10% translated (Another yuri VN by the way). And even though both of Sekai and VNTS didn't mention this, apparently according to one comment at Akerou's site Hoshimemo retranslation progress was almost reaching 90% mark back at 16th. Anyway, other than update here actually this week Sekai also had some secret update (They wrote it as sekrit) and apparently they had three unannounced project. As for the progress, the first secret project was already fully translated and already entering QA work, the 2nd secret project was at 14% translated, and the 3rd secret project was at 72% translated. I'll keep my eyes on those three secret projects and for speculation it could be either only doujin VN or some well known VN. That's all I could say for now.
For fan translation, this week there was no progress from Tsui Yuri because of some real life issue (I understand it very well) although Dergonu promised there will be progress for next week though. Anyway, this mean that there will be two regular updates here, and for the first update we got Majokoi was at 59.5% translated (Almost reach 60% mark) and 46.7% edited. While for the second update here we had Loverable was at 32.62% translated, 9.02% edited, and this week they managed to upped image editing to 67.65% (Also apparently there was some inflation for Loverable script to around 34,000 lines for more information). As for more progress, there was also Aokana another project which right now they managed to translated Chapter 1 and they about to finishing Chapter 2 translation. Also they had the goal to fully translated Chapter 3 at December. What I could say for this project would be once again good luck, although if Ren want to announce his progress there go ahead.
Other than that, this week there's another project established with the goal of translating Chaos Head Noah. I couldn't comment much for this week, but hopefully I could give more info at next VNTS Review. For last progress here, Denwalts announced that he finished the editing as his current progress, and tell us that we'll need to looking forward for next few weeks. While Denwalts portfolio was kind of questionable, since he state that he just using Koi Iro for test run and he also state that his next project would be significant one, guess I'll also take my interest into it. Oh, and for more info the progress was had at least 49,000 lines (49,339 lines to be exact) so I could expect something along medium or long VN (Koi Iro was only had around 26,000 lines). And back at Eroge Games forum he also gave some important hint like the VN was one of cursed VN which had some failed attempt. Let's see it later.
That's all for this week, and sorry for being late here. See you next week.
PS - For the title, any fan of Souma should recognize Shokugeki word and I made that because there is a character in one of header that was voiced by Risa Taneda (Which as we knew voicing Erina from particular series), and because we had Brian as MC in Japanese School Life, of course following Souma I'll add Brian there (Obviously he will not doing any cooking duel though). For spring election, in Nyuu Jene there was some sort of election and the season was probably in spring (Probably) so I just use Spring Election (St. Michael was obviously setting for Sonohana). Oh, and it was parallel with Autumn Election (AE) from Souma (By the way, because there were 8 characters at header and there's also 8 people at AE I find those were quite coincide).

So this year I've taken to writing some independent OELVN pieces, two freebies that have both gone on some sort of hiatus and one paid one that I'm nearing completion of. One of the freebies the project lead kind of had her own vision for what I was writing (and I was too verbose). The other the lead liked what I wrote and even had a demo made of it. You can view it on YouTube. I did the writing, and yes, it's based on the anime "Free!" No money changed hands, in case you were wondering, and my work was, also, free. But I haven't heard back from her or about the project since late spring. Not sure if it's just on hiatus or she got other writers to do the character routes.
That brings me to the paid project I'm close to finishing - "Stay! Stay! People's Democratic Republic of Korea" is, as you would suspect, in part a parody of Overdrive's "Go! Go! Nippon!" The project leader has been really supportive, and has mostly liked what I've given him. (There was one part where he toned down some of the tropes a bit. Maybe one day after release I'll be allowed to show the original script.) The intro, all "date" routes and interludes have been written and most edited. I'm down to the group outing and finale. I know where I want to go - it's a matter of actually getting it down. Sometimes it's hard working a full-time job, helping to raise two kids with a wife who also works full-time, and then writing on the side as well. So I'm not getting it done as fast as I'd like. I blame Fate/Grand Order, Drift Girls and Granblue Fantasy as well. CURSE YOU FUN PHONE/TABLET APP GAMES!!!
Darr over at DEVGRU_P has been keeping busy lately, adding in some other projects for production, such as Maid Mansion. He's a pretty nice guy and easy to work with. We're already talking future works beyond "Stay! Stay!" as well, so I'm pretty happy. I guess my main hope is that I'm as good a writer as I feel I am and the game/story goes over well.
Also, Eunji best Tsundere 2017!!!

Visual Novel Translation Status (11/19/2016)
Welcome to my VNTS Review for this week, and as for the title since we had Enigma as the image header I thought that I'll just using the setting from Enigma (Carlyle) to made the word akin to the welcome at When They Cry series (They had 'Welcome to Hinamizawa' for Higurashi and 'Welcome to Rokkenjima' for Umineko). As for the VN, congratulations to Fruitbat Factory and PhleBuster as the employee of Fruitbat Factory (Or should I said Phlebas who was quite known as Dakkodango Translation staff back at 2010, although I guess it was quite obvious) for the release of Enigma, and of course thanks to Conjueror too as the translator. In regard of Enigma, I think it was quite positive looking from Kaguya enjoying this and gave 5 stars here for the review. Also for now the VNDB score was at 8.17 although to be honest it's still not enough though because it was only had 9 votes (Much less than Fata Morgana when back there was only had 62 votes). For me, well perhaps I will take this game in the future.
Other than Enigma release, this week we also had Shuffle released on Steam which was only PS2 port according to some people, so obviously there will be no sex scene there duh (Nevermind, it's just like Dracu Riot patch release ie slip up release. But I'd decided to still gave my comment). As for my response, well I'm already completed this so I think I'll not that interested with Steam port, and I'd already knew some VN that was better than Shuffle. But it's still one of my first serious eroge, and nothing could change that. Oh, since we had Shuffle release on Steam might as well say rest in peace to the writer, Argobarrier who passed away back at March. As for MoeNovel, still not clear whether it's new release or just one of already released VN go translated. Let's just wait and see, although I said that there's a chance that MoeNovel will using crowdfund and chapter based release if they developed new VN according to the current trend.
As for the roundup for the translation progress, first of all once again Mangagamer made surprise update and I'd already listed it at last VNTS Review. So here's the progress below and I'd already commented about it at my last VNTS Review too.
That's all for relisting of Mangagamer updates here.
This week Sekai also at their usual, although it was still good though so noting much to comment here. For roundup Chrono Clock was at 64.66% translated (At least it was sped up from last week progress), Maitetsu was at 59.69% translated, Tenshin Ranman was at 68.654% translated, Bokukotsu was at 15.93% translated, and Princess Knight Chapter 2 was at 98.27% translated. For the info of releases, we had both of Nashvile and Japanese School Life which will be released at three days later (November 23rd). From the first look, Nashvile was some kind of yuri VN which apparently something alike Highway Blossom, while Japanese one sounds like Go Go Nippon only with also transferring school although looks like the description was spoiling all of the story though. That's all for Sekai
For fan translation, this week we had Tsui Yuri managed to had 16.5% retranslated; Loverable was at 32.04% translated, 12.97% TLC-ed, 8.89% edited, and 5.21% QC-ed (Very nice progress there, and by the way the translation team was preparing trial patch for Loverable); Majokoi was at 58.1% translated and 43.8% edited (Fred said that there's some nice progress from both of Cinderella and Kozue's routes translation); and finally this week we had Sayooshi finally reaching 40% translated mark (Or to be exact at 40.2% translated). Oh, and this week we also had Ushieta was already pass a quarter mark translated here (27.5% translated), although too bad though that they plan for releasing partial patch was cancelled because of some technicality difficulty according to this post (Good luck). For last update here, finally ToHeart 2 getting a proofreader and hopefully from now it'll be smooth sailing to the finishing touch.
That's all for this week VNTS, and see you next week.
PS - Today finally Arcadeotic gave his long awaited update here. So let me write the updates for both of Bishoujo Mangekyou progress. For Bishoujo Mangekyou 1 we got the progress at 96% edited, 91% QC-ed, and 48% TLC-ed; and as for 2.5 we got 49% translated there (Almost halfway) and 45% TLC-ed. That's all for the update, and thanks.

Truly, I am sorry.
The last update was three weeks ago, and in that period of time, I’ve had a bunch of things happen to me, both good and bad.
  

First up, I was facing a little bit of an identity crisis after two, three years of nothing of the sort. Now, this was quite big, which did block my progress for a while, but I still got some done and posted an update that week. The after-shocks, however, did ripple for a bit longer.
Worry not, I’m all over it, and a better person due to it, but that did happen and did chip at my motivation to both translate and to make updates. I don’t have a habit of having these crises, but nonetheless, I hope I have your understanding. 

Secondly, the good.
I had my 18th birthday party celebrated by my most close and loved ones, as you may have seen from my Twitter, and that did somewhat chop off my attempts at translating and making updates.
Otherwise, it was quite nice. I saw some relatives I haven’t seen for a long time, as well as my closest friend. All in all, it was very nice.
 
Now that we’ve done with the reasons for my absence, let’s go to the project updates.

Biman -1-
 
As for BIman1, past these weeks, the progress’s been good and steady as always. There was a miscalculation on my part in the previous update, so I apologise for that.
Anyways, there has been a decent amount of progress nonetheless and everyone on the team has been quite busy, so fear not.


Biman -2.5-
 
On to a more pressing part of the projects.
As I stated above, I’m sad to say, but I was lacking the dedication, motivation, and the time to translate almost at all in these past weeks as well as school getting respectably harder as weeks passed on
Now, I have gotten some of my motivation back a bit, but the progress can be a bit slower than before, but I will keep translating, so do not worry, it’ll just be a slower phase for a while.
Thank you for understanding.

Visual Novel Translation Status (11/12/2016)
This week title should be obviously that I just combine 'Nippon' from 'Go Go Nippon' and Letter from 'Root Letter'. Besides I think there's some writing that using 'Letter from ....' in some newspaper at least iirc. Well, here's this week VNTS Review and to tell the truth I kind of expected that Mangagamer will bring many updates this week, but apparently not so it's slightly letdown. Lack of batch of update aside, at least there's some up from Mangagamer there if you ask me. The upside there was obviously not 'Go Go Nippon 2016' release which became the image header of VNTS, but the announcement of Himawari release date which Mangagamer just announced yesterday and looking from their announcement we'll get this in at least 27 days later. As for now, I could only comment that eufonious singing was very nice to listen. I'll add more comment about Himawari on my thread later, and I don't interested in Root Letter.
Speaking about Himawari, today apparently there's another Himawari which right now entering Steam Greenlight. As for the VN in question, no info that I could find about the VN for now other than apparently the premise was like some kind of slice of life in summer at near mountain looking from the cover (And of course full of sunflower duh). I think I don't care about translation here too much if I may honest (There's some worry about the translation), but it was on Steam was quite interesting. Since Steam was not accepted any explicit content in regard of sex and there's also saying that there will be new CG, perhaps Japanese company treat Steam like console in the past in order to release all age version imo (Forgot to comment that the graphic was quite good). For Sharin another Kickstarter attempt, couldn't comment much for now but maybe later (Another sunflower by the way).
And for the progress this week, Sekai was still as usual for them while Mangagamer was like I'd already said above. No update from them once again (I'll wait for next week), but so does JAST although it's usual for them though (I'd just check their Tumblr and the last update was from a month ago, while their Twitter was had last tweet at November 3rd). Back to Sekai, if I may give comment here, after very crazy update from Chrono Clock at last week, this week it was slowed down significantly (They probably focusing more on some technical work according to this post at this week) with 60.21% translated for the progress this week. Both of Maitetsu and Princess Knight bring some significant update with Princess Knight Chapter 2 was almost fully translated (Maitetsu was at 55.19% translated and Princess Knight Chapter 2 was at 96.89% translated). For last updates here, we had Bokukotsu at 14.59% translated and WEE Chapter 2 did 14% of translation checking. That's all for Sekai.
For fan translation, let me state that once again that this week Ittaku managed to finished twins route translation and he still not clear yet whether if he'll finishing half of Anzu's route translation or not in the future (51% left by the way, and probably it'll be toward finishing the translation). And speaking about Ittaku, his another project (ToHeart 2) was in need of some proofreader. I knew that Tay already said this, but in case of some user read this and interested to take the role, give Ittaku the message in regard of proof read. As for Tsui Yuri, apparently Dergonu decided to redo some translation from the scratch and right now it was at 12% or so for the retranslation progress. For the usual updates here, we had Loverable at 26.12 translated, 7.62% TLC-ed, 5% (Or to be exact 4.99%) edited, and 1.69% TLC-ed; and for Majokoi right now it was at 56% edited, 42% edited, and the TLC was regressing to at 16% because of some fixing in regard of calculating according to Fred here. Oh, and for last progress Nocturnal Illusion was at 4.7% for second editing.
Oh, by the way Decay also had something to said in regard of Dracu Riot patch leak from September 30th. To be honest I didn't interested with that, but maybe there are some fans who really want to wait until it was finished and so I could only said good luck to the fans waiting then (Also be patient as well). And speaking about Moenovel, today they reveal the picture of Akihabara at their Facebook (Thanks for the picture, Toshibe-Senpai). Is that mean that their new VN will had setting in Akihabara or it's just their teasing ie trolling? Let's just see it later.
I think that's all for this week, and see you next week.
PS - Today Mangagamer deliver batch of updates like usual, which to be honest it was very late (Obviously after I finished this post). Well let's add those updates from Mangagamer's tweets here right now, and obviously the updates here were other than Himawari and Go Go Nippon if some people want to be more nitpicking here.
Maggot Bait was 5% translated Kuroinu was at 62% edited Fata Morgana Fandisc was at 36% translated Pygmalion entering the testing Dal Segno was at 87% translated and 86% edited Sorcery Joker was at 57% translated Hapymaher was at 56% translated and 37% edited Boukaku was at 42% for both of translation and editing progress Rance VI was finished the testing, and they try to trimming some bug from it along with Rance 5D Evangile W was at 70% translated Naked Butler was at 32% retranslated I think for now I could only comment that like Chrono Clock, Hapymaher progress here was slowed down although not as significant as Chrono Clock though. But then again perhaps Mangagamer was also facing the same problem as Sekai with Chrono Clock if we talk about technical work in regard of Hapymaher to be fair (For trivia, Hapymaher and Chrono Clock was had same engine ie had two methods of displaying text). Well, that's all for sudden update in regard of Mangagamer.

Visual Novel Translation Status (11/05/2016)
Since we had Memory Dogma and Sakura Maid 3 as the header, I figured that I'll use the word reminiscene (The synonym of memories) and maid for the title. As for the release, once again Dogma was still one chapter here so we couldn't said that the story was complete yet or as Fred said it's still leave many unanswered thing (The art once again was good there). For Sakura Maid 3 I would said that was very awesome of Winged Cloud there, and by awesome I mean they so quick to release the sequels, so the story was suffer A LOT (At least it was free lol).
For this week, I'm kind of questioning why there's still not Bishoujo Mangekyou duology update here. Oh well, maybe right now Arcadeotic was quite busy, and if he update those I'll add it here. And this week Mangagamer was delivered the news that Nyuu Jene will be released at 25th and they already released at the site. Try it if you still not yet.
As for Other section here, this week Conjueror managed to translated Miniature Garden halfway (50%) here. Libra was also had some progress here, and right now they managed to had Lycoris route was at 30% translated. This week apparently the infamous MoeNovel tease us with another announcement. Looking from the red color at their picture, maybe it'll be this one if only following my wishful thinking there although it still not explaining the lotus though. Keep in mind that I may be wrong here, and for trivia MoeNovel was part of Pulltop there.
Sekai, this week they had quite surprising update in regard of Chrono Clock which they jumped around at almost 16% for the progress from last week (59% translated or as they state 58.99% translated) which of course was good news because I kind of looking forward to Chrono Clock if I may honest here. As for the others, Maitetsu was reaching more than halfway (51.41%) translated, Princess Knight Chapter 2 was 82.23% translated, Tenshin Ranman was 63.57% translated, and Bokukotsu was at 13.64% translated. Oh, almost forgot that this week Akerou managed to had Hoshimemo 67% retranslated here. As for Meikyuu 18+, this week they had entering technical work and because of that this month they didn't had update for Rakuen translation. That's all for Sekai this week.
Aside from Bishoujo Mangekyou which curiously still didn't had the update yet once again, this week we had Tsui Yuri was finished for the translating and they still had much of work remain (QC and TLC) so apparently 2016 release wasn't possible. For the rest of usual update, this week we had Majokoi was at 54.3% translated and the editing reach 40% mark (40.3% edited), and Loverable was at 24.41% translated and 0.88% QC-ed. For unusual update, this week we had Sukiuso almost reached 40% mark translated (39.4% translated) and for Clover Days this week we had Ittaku managed to translated 80% of twin's route. As for Mahou Shoujo which didn't had update for quite a while (Around 5 months iirc), finally they had update with 7 chapters translated, around 3 chapters edited, and 1 chapter QC-ed (For comparison, the VN was comprised of 40 chapters here). Finally this week we also had surprise here, and it was Daitoshokan which complete for both of translating and editing progress, although there's still some work left though (QC, engine, and image editing) so this year release was also not possible like Tsui Yuri. And like Decay here, I also interested with Daitoshokan here (Decay said it was fun moege though).
That's all for this week VNTS Review from mine, and see you next week.

Visual Novel Translation Status (10/22/2016)
As for the title meaning, since the image header was 'Sakura Nova' and a nukige (Wild Romance) which going to the Steam from Zoo Company, I used Sakura Zoo from this week title (The meaning should be obvious here, and sorry for being very cliche here). Hopefully Winged Cloud didn't release Sakura Zoo for their next title there. About the releases, those two was pretty much bring the controversy there, but Wild Romance bring more because in this VN was actually nukige and bring it to the Steam mean that it'll cut the most important thing for nukige (Sex). Speaking about Steam, I didn't carein regard of Sakura Nova release at Steam. My comment here would be whatever.
As for this week, to be honest it was very bland here (There's very few progress here) and the releases was not something that I could said was looking forward too (I admit that the VN image header was quite nice too look though in regard of the girls there). Also too bad that this week we didn't see Mangagamer bring their updates like usual two weekly there (They bring another AJ Tilley VN Negligee though), although if they preparing for MYTH release right now maybe we could see some nice updates from them next week. So I'll just looking forward to next week then in regard of Mangagamer.
Since I talk about Mangagamer, might as well comment about Shuffle in regard of Navel which break up from Mangagamer in the past. While if I said that this is definitely smart move from Navel by releasing PS2 version to Steam, it's still inferior to the Essence+ which contained 5 more heroines while PS2 version only contain 2 more heroines only. Although I said nowadays it'll be cliche, it was my first VN here and I think it's still good for some beginner who want to play VN out there. For Corona Blossom Volume 2, it'll be released at 27 this month so at least Frontwing fulfill their promise in regard of release there. Didn't care too much about another Grisaia spin off (Melody) and Muv Luv news, so I couldn't comment in regard of those two much here.
As for Sekai, this week the progress for Chrono Clock was stagnant at 40% for a week ie not moving at all. As for Wagahigh, they finally fully translated there and they starting the editing and engine process there. As for usual progress, both of Maitetsu (44.75% translated) and Princess Knight Chapter 2 (69.61% translated) there had some nice progress, while for both of Tenshin Rahman (60.46% translated) and Bokukotsu (10.49% translated) was quite slow. Other than that, no much I could comment from Sekai there.
For fan translation, somehow I missed this but Sukiuso (I think I'll just called it Sukiuso there instead of Sukima) right now was at 38.7% translated. Speaking about missing something, I also miss that Luna Translation got one more project there and it was Ushieta translation, and what I could said for now good luck to Ushieta team. For more progress here, this week we only had usual one although it's still good though. For roundup here Bishoujo Mangekyou was 93% edited, 88% QC-ed, and 45% TLC-ed proofread; Bishoujo Mangekyou 2.5 was 44% translated and 35% edited TLC-ed; Majokoi was 52.3% translated, 37.1% edited, and 18% TLC-ed (The TLC may be regressing in the future); Loverable was 20.01% translated, 64.38% image edited, and 1.39% edited; and Tsui Yuri was almost completed in regard of translation (95% translated), 84% edited, and 15% QC-ed. That's all for the roundup here.
I think this is it for my VNTS Review this week, and see you next week.
PS - I wonder what happened to Kimisora project for a while because there was no update after it was posted. Turn out that the translator was preparing thesis and therefore it'll be stalled until December, so obviously there's no update here. Hope we could see the progress at January 2017 at least.
PPS - This morning, we had more progress from Chrono Clock after I give up to keep my eyes on, which is at 42.44% translated for the progress. Hopefully it'll be not stagnant anymore here.
PPPS - Thanks for the correction there, Arcadeotic.

This is a simple post putting forth my views on what the largest pitfalls are for a fantranslator, both in the immediate sense and the long-term.
Immediate
1. Making promises: Anyone who starts a translation is bound to do something stupid... such as setting a deadline or predicting how long it will take them to do something.  Even experienced translation groups trip and fall into this particular trap.  Nothing good comes of making promises, primarily because rl exists.
2.  Agreeing to translate/edit/proofread something you aren't interested in: This links to motivation.  To be blunt, no fantl will be able to finish work on a VN if they don't enjoy the original or at least prefer the genre it is in.  Fantls are a labor of love not a workplace with a set salary and a boss telling you to get back to work or he'll dock your pay.  Passion about the subject matter is necessary to get anywhere on a fantl project.
3.  Taking on a job you aren't qualified for: This mostly applies to beginner fantls... to be blunt, don't take on something you can't read easily.  If you can't read and fully comprehend the text of the VN you've agreed to translate, don't even make the attempt.
4.  Machine translations: Don't work.
5.  Looking up your name/reputation/etc: Some people get addicted to looking for positive reactions to their work.  Unfortunately, this also means that they stumble across the negative responses and can damage their confidence in ways that can destroy a project. 
Long-term
1. The choice to announce  a project or not: Many who translate VNs use community comments to help them build motivation.  However, choosing to involve the community in your project is a two-sided sword... it cuts both ways.  Negative comments, people asking you when it will come out, and complaints about the translation of any partial you put out can obliterate your motivation and cripple the project.
2.  Internal group chemistry and mechanics:  No matter how you look at it, the translator is the origin and star of any given project.  Without the translator it goes nowhere... but translators can't be the ones going around motivating the group to keep working.  It's inefficient and emotionally draining for the person in question, and it is the number one cause of project failure I've seen related to group chemistry, when the translator finally falls apart.  An editor's role only seems minor to a translator.  It is actually a job that can be equally frustrating to that of the raw translation, and a decent translator's secondary job often becomes tlcing and explaining his own work to the editor.  Thus, my advice to any fantranslator is find an editor you can talk to and get along with, or you'll regret it later.  My advice to editors is: Be patient.  Many translators really don't like going back over their own work, so just keep an eye out for potential signs that they are at their limit. 
3.  Burn-out: This can potentially happen to any fantl position.  It is also related to all the things above, since it is a state where all motivation is lost and the individual in question basically just drops out of the project.  Apathy toward the project and ignoring group members are fairly common signs of this.  Whether it is permanent or not depends on the individual, but it can take years to recover mentally and emotionally once you've reached this stage *speaking from personal experience*
 

Disclaimer: At the end of this post I get pretty salty, so be aware of that. This post endorses MY and MY OPINION ONLY. The numbers about the costs of a translation team were researched before putting them here.
Hello guys. Aizen-Sama here with another spicy rant. Although I haven’t been around the forums as long as other users who have spent their time here several years (I have spent around 7 months more or less at the present time being) I have seen that there’s a huge problem that I’ve mostly seen here, in Fuwanovel, more than any other site that congregates VN fans. In fact, I think that this doesn’t happen anywhere but here, but again, what do I know? I don’t really visit Reddit nor 4chan that much, let alone interact there.

Anyways, what I want to address is a problem that has been going on since the beginning stages of this site, and that problem is the Translation Requests, or what I like to call “e-beggars” (yes, I know this term has been invented already).

First and foremost, the majority of people that make these Translation Request posts are usually new users and I’m fully aware of that. But this has been blowing up lately. I know that 4 posts in the last month and a half doesn’t sound like that much, but the proposals are getting so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe sometimes if the guys asking these things are for real or if they’re straight out trolling.

Let’s take this post as a quick example. You’re scrolling through the forums and see this post, and then the thought comes to mind “Another typical Request Post. Sigh. Let’s see what this guy’s asking for…” and then you see this:

These posts show nothing more than ignorance and arrogance, as well as no interest towards these groups they are begging to translate something for them. Do these people even understand what it takes to translate a medium length VN? A medium length, around the 35-40k line mark in my opinion, could easily take a year. And the guy in this post begged for 5 medium and long length VN’s to be translated, one of them being >50 hours long.

But don’t be mistaken, the worst part about that post wasn’t the amount of VN’s he was begging for nor their length. It was the last statement: “Thanks in advance”. Although it sounds stupid, that’s what triggered me the most. A shitty “thanks in advance” is not something that motivates people to do these things. People have to put themselves in a translators’ shoes sometimes. Not only him, but also the people who aren’t translating, but the ones who edit the text, proofread it, the image editors, the quality checkers, etc… Do they think that the task can be easily done if the guy in question knows Japanese? Not even close.

The secret of a translation project.

I know this is hard to believe for the e-beggars, but the translation of a game requires an enormous amount of time, and one year to finish the TRANSLATION, not editing, of a medium length VN is a very decent deadline. And I’m talking about a medium length game, not a long one. Majo Koi has around 47k lines. Supposing it had one sole translator and the translator in question did 100 lines a day, the game would be finished in around 470 days approximately, this taking into account he diligently does 100 lines a day, no skipping, no nothing. Let’s convert that into hours spent in total, since that tends to shock people more; 470 days doing 100 lines a day, if the translator is an experienced one, meaning that he has done this before or is a professional in the field, he could get rid of that task in about an hour. But an amateur translator, basically the bulk of the community in itself when it comes to fan translations, could take around 1,5 or 2 hours to do the exact same number of lines. That could mean than in total, just translating could take from 470 hours for the experienced translator, which means around 20 full days translating something, to 705-940 hours for the amateur translator, which is around 30-40 days translating nonstop. And this would be just translation, I’m purposely taking out the other processes such as editing and QC’ing. Do you e-beggars understand the amount of work is being put in these projects? This is why Translation Request posts should be completely banned off this site and instantly deleted. Then again, where would I put my insulting memes towards the op’s to gain likes for no reason?

Let’s throw in another question now that we’re shifting towards that matter: Is fan-translating Visual Novels even worth it in the first place?

Before I answer (although it’s probably known what I’m going to say, given my tone) let me address this: I by no means think that fan-translation is bad, in fact, it has been the reason why we’re getting official localizations now and I think that no amount of praise of thanks can equate the amount of work the translators of these projects did in order for this genre to be known better in the Western community.

But, as sad as it sounds, fan translating at this moment is not worth it. Why? I’ll put in some of the reasons:

-          Although some members of the vocal community throw in the occasional thanks once the patch is out that’s all the team who translated the game gets. Nothing more, nothing less. Some people might say that recognition counts as some sort of reward as well, but personally I don’t think that’s the case.
-          No reviews of the translated VN’s are usually made (this is what in my opinion spreads the awareness of these games), only discussion threads are made, which is pretty sad in my opinion.
-          I’m going to quote something that Clephas said in one of my posts, that sums up this next point:  “Another thing is that most people in the community will never even try to experience fantl from the other side of things... they don't realize how much time it eats up, that emptiness you feel when you realize you've used dozens of hours of your personal time only to put out a patch that people bash left and right for 'errors' and other shit.”
-          The work put in to translate the game itself is not worth, meaning that the compensation that the translator/team worked for it is not even close enough to what they should be getting.
Lastly, I want to address the problem that comes with donations, awareness of localization costs/translation costs, and ignorance.

I’ll cut to the chase; for the people that think that with donations alone you can “pay” a translator to do some kind of game, you’re WRONG. Let’s put an example of what could a medium VN translation cost: let’s suppose that the team consists of three persons, to translate a 1.5 million jp character VN (equating to a 45k line count approximately). The translator gets 1 cent per Japanese character, the editor gets 1 cent per English word and the QC gets a quarter of a cent for each English word. In total, the final price equates to 33k dollars JUST FOR THE TEAM TO TRANSLATE A SINGLE VN. And these prices are apparently pretty shitty for a translator, so yeah, there you go. Besides, why donating a random group of guys, who could easily run away with the money and machine translate the game, or not even translate the game at all, when you can just support the official localizers? Contrary to what some people think they are actually releasing more games than ever and the 18+ industry in the scene has never seen so many official releases ever.

Summing up this 3 page-long essay of frustration:

1.       Please for the love of god don’t e-beg or Request for translations. Just no, it triggers people off and it only shows how ignorant you are about what happens behind the scenes.
2.       Fan Translating in this actual moment is NOT WORTH, only people who are very commited and have a strong resolution will be able to start one, and very few out of those will actually finish the project.
3.       Donations are NOT a solution to encourage Fan Translation, it ruins the very concept of it and it’s also ILLEGAL. Don’t support an already illegal activity by paying it.
4.       Before posting retarded shit on the forums please look for other posts similar to what you might want to post. Maybe looking at the responses could enlighten you and help the other users not waste their time by reading the same shit over and over again.
5.       Before criticizing Translations and patches for “errors” and “typos” and being a little whining bitch how about you try to show interest on how much effort people put on the translation of these games behind the scenes? (This goes solely to the people that haven't experienced working on a fan translation and whine non-stop about "how bad the translation of this is" and blah blah blah.)
Anyways, I think that’s all the rage out. For those of you who haven’t dozed off already have a nice day and all of that stuff.

And if you smash that like button you will get your very own… DIES IRAE MACHINE TRANSLATED PATCH. Yes! This is not a scam at all, your own personal Dies Irae Machine Translated patch. If you leave a like you can choose between a Google, Bing, or a Skype translated patch. I’ve invested so many hours on them, it was totally worth though ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Been busy this week, didn't get to read as much, took a bunch of screenshots though!
Bethly came to school the next day, all healthy and less depressed.
The one-room classroom had its first meeting, and it basically consisted of Yukito, the 5 grills and Momo-chan-sensei as the teacher. Since the topic was "My favourite thing" and Yukito was first, he gave a speech about how the local mountaintop was his favourite thing, and everyone liked it so much they decided they wanted to go there.
Bethly also talked about her favourite thing, which is Alberta, and her mom. After the one-room classroom, everyone went home together, and discussed the two speeches.
It was decided that they'd go up to the mountain top on the weekend. Naturally Yukito and Yuzuki arrived at the rendezvous point first, and they soon saw what looked like Hina being accosted by two large gentlemen, and figured they must be womanizers, so Yukito had to go save her.
Turns out they were just tourists trying to get directions.
Eventually everyone but Bethly arrives, and since she's nowhere to be seen we end up taking the cable car without her.
A short while after we reach the top, we hear a familiar sneeze somewhere nearby.
Once the group is all back together, everyone decides to have a snowball fight, as middle-schoolers do.
Well, that's all for now, and now it's time for more reading!