trhvmn

Oh yay, Touhou. I've played some of the games before and enjoyed them considerably, though since I kind of suck at shmups I end up being the person that just prefers to check the fan works out instead. I especially like some of the comedy doujins... and I'm actually listening to some of Shibayan Records' remixes right now too. Regarding 13.5, it's looking pretty interesting, and I might check it out, since it seems like it'll be pretty different from the previous fighters. I just hope Meiling stay in.

Lol'd at the ignorance at the comments. Calling Higurashi porn? Please do some research first. But yeah, it's a bad choice. I don't know exactly which VNs Mangagamer has liscenced, so I dunno which ones would be better options, though.

Ok, so I don't actually play otome games though I'd probably be interested in trying one out, but... ...they do this too? That's... seriously disappointing.

Hmm... I don't have a top 10, but I do have a top n that I add to sometimes. It's n because the number of ranks in it is variable, and some of them are shared by more than one anime in particular. Anyway, let's see. 1 Steins;Gate 2 Bakemonogatari 2 Nisemonogatari 4 Puella Magi Madoka Magica 5 Fate/zero 5 Ben-To 7 Nichijou 8 Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 9 Usagi Drop That's pretty much it. Honorable mention goes to Angel Beats, Baccano and Haruhi.

For me, h-scenes usually feel really tacked-on without much thought for how they impact the story, and are just there to make the VN sell. Example: Type-Moon's earlier works (Tsukihime and Fate/stay night) have some really bad h-scenes, but their more recent stuff (Realta Nua and Mahou Tsukai no Yoru) lack them completely. Of course, my problem is not with sex in general, but rather how it's handled. I think such scenes should be meaningful to the plot in some way, either as a device (like in Saya no Uta, as someone mentioned above), as a way to show the development of two characters' relationship, or whatever. One VN that comes to mind as having some nice sex scenes in this regard is Katawa Shoujo. And regarding nukiges... though I do like reading some every now and then, there's nothing keeping one of those from having an interesting story as well.

I joined some weeks ago, and it was dead. I joined some days ago, and it was still dead. I joined some minutes ago, and it's still dead. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong.

I love this. Pre-installed Chaos;Head, here I come! It'd be great if such a detailed listing could be added tot he site itself. In the future, anyway.

Ah, let's see... In your own words, what is a visual novel? An art medium that combines literature, illustrations, and music. The ratio of each of those three in a given VN depends on the work itself - some are more reliant on the music (Higurashi, Umineko), others don't have a lot of graphics (Narcissu). A visual novel may also feature interactive elements; if it does, it could even be considered a video game (Phoenix Wright, Sengoku Rance). I'm not exactly sure where the line between the two is drawn, though I'd like to figure it out someday. What makes you love VNs? Hmm... I'm not exactly sure, to be honest. I suppose, in one part, the ways the stories are constructed - their length, the first-person narrative style, choices, stuff like that. I also enjoy more depressing or darker stories, and those are plentiful in VNs. (and I like manga-style illustrations too lol) On the other hand, something that I never noticed until I read an article that Aaeru linked to somewhere - visual novels are like regular novels in that they allow the reader to use their imagination to form the story... but while in regular novels, you don't get any sort of guildelines regarding that, VNs lay down a framework that you can base the scenario off of using the visuals. I'm not sure if I worded that properly, so here's an example that I took from my own experiences. Whenever I'm reading a book, I often find myself imagining what a character or place looks like as soon as they're first introduced, only to have to redo that mental image once the character/place actually is described. I never have such problems with VNs, since you can already see what everything looks like as soon as they appear, but those visuals are only there so you can have an idea of what's going on - enough to construct the mental images without confusion. Name one favorite song from a VN: Eh, there's one from Umineko that I always thought of as really amazing, but I don't remember its name and saying when it plays would probably be spoilers. Though most songs from Umineko are excellent, really. Can you think of a moment in a VN-to-Anime where the anime effectively mirrored or embodied the novel? Huh... I haven't watched any good such adaptations to comment on this (well, I'm watching Steins;Gate right now, but I haven't read the VN). However, having watched the Fate/stay night anime after reading the original work, and having found it amazingly terrible, I'd like to present my opinions on why it failed so hard. • The most immediate error that was apparent to me while I was watching it was, without doubt, their failure to stick to a single route. It seems that they decided to started off with Fate, but then tried to shoehorn elements from Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel into the plot, only to realize that it wasn't working out as they neared the end. Considering that F/sn has a pretty serious story, the clusterfuck that this resulted in should be apparent. Story elements that were completely irrelevant to Fate's plot ended up being introduced but not fully developed, which just made things confusing (example: revealing Archer's Noble Phantasm, but not his identity). • Second... ok, obviously they couldn't animate the h-scenes since the anime aired on TV, and the ones in the VN were pretty bad anyway, but... couldn't they have taken the scenes from Realta Nua (the non-h rerelease) instead of making shit up, like the infamous Mana Transfer Dragon? (and let's not even mention the Mana Transfer Dolphins from the UBW movie) • Third... ok, bias here, but I just don't like Deen. The quality of their works is pretty... ehhhhh. F/sn is one of the most famous visual novels out there, so why did such a studio get to produce its anime? Same goes for Tsukihime, whose anime is also famous for being horrible (I haven't watched it yet, though, so no comments on it). I rejoiced greatly upon hearing that Ufotable would be producing Fate/zero. Anyway, I'll refrain from bitching much further about this. Bottom line, not being completely faithful to the original work, not being able to decide which route to do, having a shitty studio produce the anime. There's probably more to this, but that's what I can think of right now... I think I'll add a "what I think would make an adaptation be good" section to this tomorrow, so as to not make this part so bitchy lol.

I think I'm a couple days late but whatever. So, uh, let's see... I'm a brazilian guy who discovered visual novels many years ago through Yume Miru Kusuri, after seeing a thread about it on 4chan's /v/. Got interested, downloaded it, loved it, and I think VNs have been my favorite medium ever since (though I haven't read as many of them as I'd like). My current favorite is Saya no Uta. Other things I like include, predictably, anime, manga, videogames, and probably not-so-predictably tabletop RPGs. Seeing the stuff in Aaeru's blogs really made me see visual novels and copyright in a different light, so it's good to be here!

A lot of stuff, but the two most interesting ones are probably Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Robotics;Notes. The first because JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE FUCK YEAH, the second because I'm already watching Steins;Gate right now and it's really great.

I was reading Kara no Shoujo some weeks ago. Ended up stopping for a while due to other stuff, but I plan on continuing it soon. It's being amazing so far, what with all the crazy plot twists and mystery and awesome art and shit. I hope Innocent Grey's other stuff gets translated in the future too.