Tyr

I dont intend to use fakku's services and never really used fakku before either (they were shit before they went commercial as well)
 
but let me summarize for those unfamiliar with fakku:
the hate for fakku stems from how they once hosted stuff for free (illegally) like sadpanda etc
but then they went commerical bought licenses and then they demanded other sites to take down everything they now own
 
people hate fakku for pretty much the same reasons they hate crunchyroll
at first they were free and didnt give one shit about copyright
but once they went commercial copyright suddenly started to matter
 
 
way too much drama in the western scene for me
pro-tip: learn Japanese

If the point of the VN and the developers was to take an stance AGAINST promoting crimes against children they didn't do a very good job and the message doesn't convey AT ALL...
Specially not when your main artist draw just loli hentai and the art in the VN itself depict children in very suggestive posses or in places that you would relate to a jav  and I'm not just saying that while I look at the cover and one of the girls  (they all have between 8 and 11 yo) has like a condom in her mouth, yes, yes I know, it's probably just a healthy food or something that will turn that little girl into a strong woman : D

You could as well learn japanese and stop playing shitty games.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Time for some status update for my JP VN's I guess.
Well, I already finished Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata some weeks ago. This was actually one of the titles I was mostly looking forward to this year, because it's the quasi successor to Kiriya Hakushakuke no Roku Shimai which is still one my all time favorites. What made it special is that it was a very ero heavy title that also offered an intriguing, mysterious plot that resembles Innocent Grey's semi-realistic style very closely. But in contrast to Innocent Grey's titles, it was much less gory and more focused on heroines and fan service. But the combination of an ero heavy VN with a strong supporting plot is still extremely rare. Especially since the production values were very high with art from M&M and a great soundtrack. The title was still released under the label of Atelier Kaguya when M&M was still the artist of Team Heartbeat before they 'rebelled' and created studio Astronauts Sirius which is mostly known for their H-heavy gameplay titles now.

Astronauts Sirius usually has a good sense for game mechanics and their titles are usually less grindy than Eushully & Co who managed to take grinding on a whole new level. For that reason it's usually possible to finish one of their titles in reasonable time. Their biggest weakness is that their stories unfortunatley tend to suck. So you play an Astronauts VN because of the gameplay and M&M's sexy art, but hardly because of the story.
For that reason I was hesitant what to expect from the new Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata, especially since their last try in 'story' Saint Estella was quite disappointing. I was still slightly optimistic though, since they broke their fixed annual release cycle for it and gave it about half a year more development time. And to give a short preemptive consclusion, I was both positively surprised and relieved that they succeeded with it for the most part.
In Hyakki Ryouran no Yakata you play a student from the University of Tokyo who comes to Yugoshi mountain in search for his professor. During his search he stumbles upon an old, mysterious mansion and is invited to join a certain marriage ritual of the Mikado family along with several other candidates. The story is set up in a similar way like an old Hitchcock movie, where several people meet in a house where one or more of the participants are murdered and you have to figure out the culprit. It's therefore a very traditonal murder mystery at heart - just with way more sex in it. 
The VN also takes a different approach to many other story VN's, that make POV switching almost a new sport, in that it keeps its protagonist POV almost for the whole time. This makes the VN very immersive - you only know what the protagonist knows and sees and nothing more except for the knowledge you gain from previous routes. There's a lot of intrigue and hidden secrets to discover and one play through will only reveal parts of the story. I was honestly impressed how much effort they took to give every character a unique identity and reasons why they are part of the story. Everyone has its place is part of a big mystery. One my favorite characters was actually Iwaki Akio, a detective who also tries to solve the mystery for his own reasons. He's more or less your ally for a good part of the story. The characters are also for the most part more 'grey' instead of just black and white, with both character strengths and flaws.

The routes of the VN are roughly separated in three parts - the introduction route, the main routes and the true route. The introduction route was a bit of a suprise since all heroine routes are locked and the VN is pretty much kinetic. H scenes there are actually plot relevant except some 'preview semi H-scenes' for the main heroines which were probably only included to keep readers who are only there for 'one reason' at least mildly entertained. But I found the plot surprisingly engaging and dig through it in pretty much one sitting. The VN pretty much forces you into a bad end here which is already spoiled at the start.
After that the main routes are unlocked and you can pick heroines and events via map movement. Now you'll have to change the events of the introduction route. To succeed with a heroine route you also have to find certain items along the way, the protagonist will usually use to free himself from unpleasant situations or get important information. If you missed a required item you'll run in a bad end, where you'll usually get killed and you might also see (a rather tame) rape scene. The routes itself vary in quality. Since the introduction route already tells a lot of the story, the heroine arcs were a bit too much uneven on the fan service side.

Aya's route felt almost redundant with the introduction route and Yuri's felt more like a side route. Considering Yuri was the heroine I was mostly looking toward too, that was a bit disappointing. She didn't even get an appropriate ending. And that's almost a shame since she was a quite interesting character. She wasn't just a tsundere, she was borderline cruel and your job was more or less to save her from herself. Fumika had surprisingly the strongest route besides the main heroine Ririka. The other side routes were pretty much just fan service.
After that the true route around Ririka unlocks and the final secrets about the hidden shrine and the dark god of the Mikado family gets revealed. Although it felt a bit rushed and lacked some information about the previous miko, it was still good enough to leave me satisfied. In comparison to its predecessor Kiriya Shimai, I'd say it has probably a better written main plot, but the heroine routes besides the main heroine Riririka felt a bit more lacking. Kiriya Shimai had more fleshed out heroine routes but the main plot was probably a bit weaker. Though it's quite some time that I read it. Other weaknesses are shared by both and are also known from Innocent Grey VN's. Picking another route can result in lots of text skipping with frequent interruptions sinec you have to pick the right location. Since the VN is also very ero heavy, the heroines tend to be rather 'willing' even if the H-scenes itself are probably at least less random than in Kara no Shoujo. The VN also has a very tight time frame that makes relationship developments a bit unrealistic.

But overall, I was pretty satisfied with the VN despite some flaws. Production values were top notch with great art and soundtrack that helped greatly to create a thriliing, mysterious atmosphere. The story might not be as refined as in a true Innocent Grey VN, but it's still very solid and easily wipes the floor with what most other VN releases dare to offer. I also appreciate the fact that the VN isn't overambitious and tries to create an epic conflict with hardly any substance to back it. The VN focuses on the mansion and its involved characters, locations and events, and that part is rather well done.
Character ranking: Yuri > Aya > Ririka > Fumika
Overall rating: 8/10
Besides my reread of Kara no Shoujo 2, this was probably the best VN I've read this year. I finished it well under a week, which is extremely fast for my standards.
 
Besides that, I finished two routes in Shin Koihime Eiyuutan, one good and one bad. But I stalled it for a while when Hyakki came up. The VN just offers short fan service routes anyway and I still dislike the mass over class with far too many heroines you're apparently involved with and you often don't even get the choice with whom you want to get involved with.

I also don't think I'll continue with Ikusa Megami Verita. Having two hero parties in a grinding game is just too much and I was neither impressed by the story nor the characters so far. I rather start a newer Eushully VN instead when I get motivated again.
I also had a look on what Atelier Kaguya's non-rebel studios had to offer for some 'light entertainment'. I tried out Love Tore form Team HonkyTonk Pumpkin first which turned out to be probably the best 'pure nukige' I've played so far. I played it's successor JD Onsen last year which impressed me with its outstanding animation quality but disappointed with its silly plot. Love Tore was more of a traditional dating sim and I liked the character designs a bit more, but the animation quality was just as good. Overall rating: 7.5/10
I then also I tried Niizuma Fuwa Toro from Team CheshireCat but it turned out as a quite disappointing 5/10. Though I'll also have a look on some of Team Bare & Bunny's newer releases, even if I still feel burned by the buggy crash festival that Baku Ane was.

I also started with Caucasus since MangaGamer doesn't seem to care about story VN's anymore. It was quite troublesome since it's the first VN I couldn't hook in Windows 10 and had to create a Win7 virtual machine just for it.

Every game i was interested in buying wasnt available world wide, for example http://ikimasyou.com/ and many of the updated win 10 version of old games (all came with that annoying drm system) and yes is a pain, having limited number of installs and having to verify your copy every time you install it, specially if you run your games under a virtual machine, not counting that it runs in the background scanning and sending constant info to them about who knows 

Also I just imagined that you cannot access to your game list unless you use a japanese vpn or else they will redirect you to nutaku webpage? Both of you kinda omitted that fact which is important imo...
http://dlsoft.dmm.com/mylibrary/ -> http://www.dmm.com/top/-/error/area/ > nutaku shit site
http://personal.games.dmm.com/my-games/ -> "ご利用中のゲームはありません" (not true, using a vpn you can see them and download them)

 

I don't recommend buying from dmm since you need to use a japanese vpn to buy any game and also to download them or see your game list of owned games, if you don't they will send you to nutaku page but still you wont be able to access your games lol
I recommend dlsite where you can use paypal or digiket, getchu is a good alternative too.
Btw before buying a game check for this first:

Which means it has some kind of drm, don't buy those, they are a pain in the ass and for example if you bought a game from dmm you will need a japanese vpn (or proxy) to play the game, at least the first time. And as any drm protection they run a software in the background that do shady stuff and also sometimes you wont be able to even hook the vn because of it since the .exe is modified by the drm system.
 

That is an Internet myth that became popular because it provides simple answers for something most people can't understand, but it is actually not true.
Censorship was very lax in the 80s. The reason for this is that home video anime was still a new medium and hentai as a genre wasn't yet as pornographic as it is today, so the creators didn't know yet how they should apply these censorship laws that initially were invented for 3DPD porn. Tentacles back then were uncensored, but so were also vulvas and other things without a pornographic context. That changed a few years later when hentai became mainstream and censorship was enforced vehemently. Not only needed human genitals to be censored, vaginal and phallic objects, like tentacles, had to be censored too. 
Tentacles being a workaround for censorship laws is therefore nonsensical. There were no need and when the need arose, tentacles too were victims of it.
Also, littleshogun already provided a source showing that tentacles were part of Japanese erotography for a long time already, so tentacles becoming a "thing" in the 80s couldn't have been true anyway.
That was for aesthetic reasons since mosaics are ugly. For some reasons the perception of this changed in the later 90s, but that has nothing to do with censorship either.

Here is the correct viewing order:
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Waga Yuku wa Hoshi no Taikai
Prologue Movie. Introduces main characters and setting. After watching this, you will know if you want to spend the next weeks watching 110 episodes of this stuff.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Aratanaru Tatakai no Overture
This movie is a compilation of the first four episodes of the series. I recommend watching this instead of the first four episodes since it's better in every regard, better animation and new scenes make for a quite cinematic viewing experience.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (110 episodes OVA)
You can skip the first four episodes if you watched Overture, but they are not completely redundant since there are some scenes which were not included in the movie.
The first season (first 26 episodes) is by far the best, the second season is still good (till episode 52) but I was honestly disappointed by the rest. Your mileage may vary. However, it's still a masterpiece and a must watch for every fan of Japanese animation.
Optional: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden
Two seasons of side stories taking place chronological before even the first movie. You can watch the different arcs in any order you want, but I highly recommend you watch the majority of them during the first 26 episodes of the main series. It's the point in the series where these side stories are the most relevant and they might not get to you as much emotionally if you watch them much later or after you finished the main series.
 

Here is the correct viewing order:
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Waga Yuku wa Hoshi no Taikai
Prologue Movie. Introduces main characters and setting. After watching this, you will know if you want to spend the next weeks watching 110 episodes of this stuff.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Aratanaru Tatakai no Overture
This movie is a compilation of the first four episodes of the series. I recommend watching this instead of the first four episodes since it's better in every regard, better animation and new scenes make for a quite cinematic viewing experience.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (110 episodes OVA)
You can skip the first four episodes if you watched Overture, but they are not completely redundant since there are some scenes which were not included in the movie.
The first season (first 26 episodes) is by far the best, the second season is still good (till episode 52) but I was honestly disappointed by the rest. Your mileage may vary. However, it's still a masterpiece and a must watch for every fan of Japanese animation.
Optional: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden
Two seasons of side stories taking place chronological before even the first movie. You can watch the different arcs in any order you want, but I highly recommend you watch the majority of them during the first 26 episodes of the main series. It's the point in the series where these side stories are the most relevant and they might not get to you as much emotionally if you watch them much later or after you finished the main series.
 

You're probably also watching Anime for the PLOT!
 
He's not a racist, he's is a culturist.
A racist thinks certain people are inferior for superficial reasons like skin color or the place of birth. A culturist however dislikes certain cultures based on his own morals and values which these cultures don't respect or are working against.
Being a culturist is the inevitable conclusion to every human being who has a strong sense of what is right or wrong and does not just blindly accept other ideas and concepts just for the sake of being tolerant when they are (in his opinion) clearly wrong.
There is much too dislike about Japan. I could count dozens of things that are (in my opinion) wrong with this country. But this wrongness is also the reason why this country can produce so many stories and other pieces of art that resonate with so many people around the world.
I don't want to live in Japan, but I'll gladly take it's products.

No offense, but this is such an arrogant and entitled statement, I have to call you out on it. His intend was never to make a "good" translation of Cross Channel, his only purpose was to write his essay on Cross Channel. Also translating the game was a necessary evil because he needed a quotable source and Ixrec's translation was too liberal. He needed a translation that was very close to the Japanese script, because his thesis was based on nuances not found in Amaterasu's version.
Saying he should rather practice writing and translate games instead of writing essays is extremely disrespectful to him and the work he did. Maybe I'm the only one, but I really appreciated his book. It's a very interested read and helped me to like Cross Channel (which I actually don't really like) a little more by offering some new points, ideas and theories I hadn't thought of yet. I might not agree with everything he wrote, but at least he gave us some interesting and original thoughts. That's 100% more than most people in the English VN community can offer (not you Rooke, you write usually very interesting comments) who are ironically the first when it comes to dismissing GHS' work and calling him a troll.
Which leads me to:
What even is this? This is exactly what it wanted to be; a literal translation of the original prose. You call him out on being too wordy when that was exactly the point of it.
When he released his book (and with it his translation of Cross Channel, since the translation is an attachment to the book, not the other way around) he explicitly stated that the translation is not supposed to be a "normal" translation, not supposed to be read the first time you play the game and should only be seen as an accompanying material. A purpose it accomplishes adequately, by the way, and which would not have been possible if he translated it any other way.
I know you know that, I know that most people in this thread know that, and still, you guys deliberately choose to ignore this fact just so you can thrash his works and efforts and make him look like an illiterate. I wonder why? What is the reason for being this envious, malicious and toxic?
Has anyone of you actually read his book? What do you think of the points he made? Do you want to engage in a discussion about his thesis? ... Of course, you don't. That would take effort and actual thinking. It's much easier to make someone into a meme and criticize him for the things, he never was out do to.
In some way GHS is really a troll, but not in the way most people try to depict him. He is the kind of troll who, every time he surfaces, gets people to show their true color, while still providing interesting and thought-provoking material. Just like last month, when he released his (pretty interesting) book and translations of the talestune games, and was again misquoted and badmouthed by people who didn't even read his essay or only skimmed through it to find something they can take out of context and make fun of it. The level of shallowness, pretentiousness and lynch mob mentality in the English VN community is really astonishing.

GHS is indeed a troll, the best kind of troll. Not the kind of troll the VN community wants, but the kind it deserves.

Jesus Christ, such disappointment. I'm actually glad I wasn't really interested with Libra, but I still cheered and hold my fingers crossed for the whole team responsible for localization. Sadly, it seems to be all in vain and it's quite baffling seeing how much the final product diverted from the original concept; frankly, it feels almost like a fraud of sorts. Where did things go so wrong to end up like this? Was it the lack of actual communication yet again™, mere misunderstanding or typical corporationism?
I'm even more astonished with people, who are fine with such quality assurance and state it's fine to pay 40$ for something that reads like garbage, any middle-schooler would wrote better. I'm sorry to say that, but this kind of approach isn't acceptable.

I'm not a backer of Libra so I'll just post a reply to this here:
 

You open ITH in your virtual box, then you activate "clipboard sharing". TA or whatever you use, which runs on your Host OS, will get everything the ITH in the virtual box captures since it will be shared between Guest OS and Host OS. Simple solution and works flawlessly (as long as you use VirtualBox as your virtual machine).
I use VirtualBox for every game prior to Windows 7 and never had a problem with it. It's really the best solution to play older games.
I have a WinXP VM for nearly every game and a Japanese Win98SE VM for really, really old games that only work on this OS. You can't use ITH in Win95 or Win98, so if you want to hook them, you have to hook the VM itself. I doubt anyone wants to do it, so I wont go into it here, but it is possible. ^^

More like insane.
That standpoint is wrong. VN's were never retrofitted around that. It simply happened and that had nothing to do with any particular convictions, beliefs or social standards. VN's began as games made mostly by male developers for male consumers, so it's quite obvious they presented mostly a male point of view. It's not even a standard anymore nowadays, as vn's became so diverse unlike any other genre in the world. One of my favourite vn's are in fact those written by female writers, as they typically have a lot better grasp of certain aspects, rather than guys mostly writing porn. Japanese also don't typically mix in negativity into entertainment like we do, unless it's straight out played for laughs. Their games are mostly "neutral" and devoid of the sort of negativity, that affects our entertainment with various creators including their very personal standpoints on controversial, difficult topics - politics, religion, social standards etc. often showcasing their views in a rather extreme way that is bound to attract attention and cause arguments because it's often hate speech. We live in an age, where people forgot how to discuss things and creators forgot how to properly ask questions. More over, I have a feeling people also forgot what it really means to have fun and enjoy things.

I would suggest to stick with a virtual pc. VirtualBox is a great virtual machine program. It's free and you can install all kinds of OSs. If you have a system that runs Win10 it's probably good enough to run a virtual machine with a WinXP or Win7. Install your vns on your virtual machine and there you go. You can even adjust the size of the screen (some older vns don't have that ability but it's no problem if you run in a VM). Keeps your computer clean too.
But how will the text hooking work? Say you have ITH on your system and the vn is in a virtual machine. It's possible but might take a few extra steps to make it work.

No offense, but this is such an arrogant and entitled statement, I have to call you out on it. His intend was never to make a "good" translation of Cross Channel, his only purpose was to write his essay on Cross Channel. Also translating the game was a necessary evil because he needed a quotable source and Ixrec's translation was too liberal. He needed a translation that was very close to the Japanese script, because his thesis was based on nuances not found in Amaterasu's version.
Saying he should rather practice writing and translate games instead of writing essays is extremely disrespectful to him and the work he did. Maybe I'm the only one, but I really appreciated his book. It's a very interested read and helped me to like Cross Channel (which I actually don't really like) a little more by offering some new points, ideas and theories I hadn't thought of yet. I might not agree with everything he wrote, but at least he gave us some interesting and original thoughts. That's 100% more than most people in the English VN community can offer (not you Rooke, you write usually very interesting comments) who are ironically the first when it comes to dismissing GHS' work and calling him a troll.
Which leads me to:
What even is this? This is exactly what it wanted to be; a literal translation of the original prose. You call him out on being too wordy when that was exactly the point of it.
When he released his book (and with it his translation of Cross Channel, since the translation is an attachment to the book, not the other way around) he explicitly stated that the translation is not supposed to be a "normal" translation, not supposed to be read the first time you play the game and should only be seen as an accompanying material. A purpose it accomplishes adequately, by the way, and which would not have been possible if he translated it any other way.
I know you know that, I know that most people in this thread know that, and still, you guys deliberately choose to ignore this fact just so you can thrash his works and efforts and make him look like an illiterate. I wonder why? What is the reason for being this envious, malicious and toxic?
Has anyone of you actually read his book? What do you think of the points he made? Do you want to engage in a discussion about his thesis? ... Of course, you don't. That would take effort and actual thinking. It's much easier to make someone into a meme and criticize him for the things, he never was out do to.
In some way GHS is really a troll, but not in the way most people try to depict him. He is the kind of troll who, every time he surfaces, gets people to show their true color, while still providing interesting and thought-provoking material. Just like last month, when he released his (pretty interesting) book and translations of the talestune games, and was again misquoted and badmouthed by people who didn't even read his essay or only skimmed through it to find something they can take out of context and make fun of it. The level of shallowness, pretentiousness and lynch mob mentality in the English VN community is really astonishing.

GHS is indeed a troll, the best kind of troll. Not the kind of troll the VN community wants, but the kind it deserves.

None taken
Translating hundreds of thousands of words so that he can quote sections here and there is probably the biggest waste of time I've heard of. If that was the reason behind his translation of Cross Channel then I have to congratulate him for inventing such a unique way of wasting years of his life. Normal people would translate the relevant sections within the essay itself instead of producing a separate few hundred thousand word "throw away" translation (which was never meant to be good) solely so he could quote a few thousand words from it xD (and even that number is too many.) That is the very definition of inefficient behaviour (so very much doing it wrong.)
So I would have to question the point on that count. Content and themes can be summarised, select quotes could have been translated within the document.
Secondly and probably more importantly, considering that some of his prose is almost impossible to decipher, I would have to wonder if the translation served any point at all. If you put forth an incompetent translation, then any conclusions or statements drawn from that translation is lost. Words have been improperly used, the style has been butchered, meaning has been lost. Because of this, as an accompanying text to any reasoned argument it's almost pointless.
Nabokov needed no translation accompaniment to Turgenev when he critiqued his work, rather he quoted and explained the relevant points within the text:
 
And when Nabokov did release a translation along with his commentary, it was an exemplary translation (not a throw away one,) because doing anything else would have been an affront to the author (he wanted liberal translators put in the stocks and other stuff. He was very passionate of translation quality ... the zealot.)
To me, the idea that the released translation accompaniment of Cross Channel was "never meant to be good" and "was just an aid" reeks of the excuses used by people who want to dodge criticism of their work. An excuse to sidestep judgement and criticism.
Just my 2c

Basically, if what GHS wants to do is write essays then he should stick to writing essays. Translate and quote the relevant passages within the text itself.

No offense, but this is such an arrogant and entitled statement, I have to call you out on it. His intend was never to make a "good" translation of Cross Channel, his only purpose was to write his essay on Cross Channel. Also translating the game was a necessary evil because he needed a quotable source and Ixrec's translation was too liberal. He needed a translation that was very close to the Japanese script, because his thesis was based on nuances not found in Amaterasu's version.
Saying he should rather practice writing and translate games instead of writing essays is extremely disrespectful to him and the work he did. Maybe I'm the only one, but I really appreciated his book. It's a very interested read and helped me to like Cross Channel (which I actually don't really like) a little more by offering some new points, ideas and theories I hadn't thought of yet. I might not agree with everything he wrote, but at least he gave us some interesting and original thoughts. That's 100% more than most people in the English VN community can offer (not you Rooke, you write usually very interesting comments) who are ironically the first when it comes to dismissing GHS' work and calling him a troll.
Which leads me to:
What even is this? This is exactly what it wanted to be; a literal translation of the original prose. You call him out on being too wordy when that was exactly the point of it.
When he released his book (and with it his translation of Cross Channel, since the translation is an attachment to the book, not the other way around) he explicitly stated that the translation is not supposed to be a "normal" translation, not supposed to be read the first time you play the game and should only be seen as an accompanying material. A purpose it accomplishes adequately, by the way, and which would not have been possible if he translated it any other way.
I know you know that, I know that most people in this thread know that, and still, you guys deliberately choose to ignore this fact just so you can thrash his works and efforts and make him look like an illiterate. I wonder why? What is the reason for being this envious, malicious and toxic?
Has anyone of you actually read his book? What do you think of the points he made? Do you want to engage in a discussion about his thesis? ... Of course, you don't. That would take effort and actual thinking. It's much easier to make someone into a meme and criticize him for the things, he never was out do to.
In some way GHS is really a troll, but not in the way most people try to depict him. He is the kind of troll who, every time he surfaces, gets people to show their true color, while still providing interesting and thought-provoking material. Just like last month, when he released his (pretty interesting) book and translations of the talestune games, and was again misquoted and badmouthed by people who didn't even read his essay or only skimmed through it to find something they can take out of context and make fun of it. The level of shallowness, pretentiousness and lynch mob mentality in the English VN community is really astonishing.

GHS is indeed a troll, the best kind of troll. Not the kind of troll the VN community wants, but the kind it deserves.

No offense, but this is such an arrogant and entitled statement, I have to call you out on it. His intend was never to make a "good" translation of Cross Channel, his only purpose was to write his essay on Cross Channel. Also translating the game was a necessary evil because he needed a quotable source and Ixrec's translation was too liberal. He needed a translation that was very close to the Japanese script, because his thesis was based on nuances not found in Amaterasu's version.
Saying he should rather practice writing and translate games instead of writing essays is extremely disrespectful to him and the work he did. Maybe I'm the only one, but I really appreciated his book. It's a very interested read and helped me to like Cross Channel (which I actually don't really like) a little more by offering some new points, ideas and theories I hadn't thought of yet. I might not agree with everything he wrote, but at least he gave us some interesting and original thoughts. That's 100% more than most people in the English VN community can offer (not you Rooke, you write usually very interesting comments) who are ironically the first when it comes to dismissing GHS' work and calling him a troll.
Which leads me to:
What even is this? This is exactly what it wanted to be; a literal translation of the original prose. You call him out on being too wordy when that was exactly the point of it.
When he released his book (and with it his translation of Cross Channel, since the translation is an attachment to the book, not the other way around) he explicitly stated that the translation is not supposed to be a "normal" translation, not supposed to be read the first time you play the game and should only be seen as an accompanying material. A purpose it accomplishes adequately, by the way, and which would not have been possible if he translated it any other way.
I know you know that, I know that most people in this thread know that, and still, you guys deliberately choose to ignore this fact just so you can thrash his works and efforts and make him look like an illiterate. I wonder why? What is the reason for being this envious, malicious and toxic?
Has anyone of you actually read his book? What do you think of the points he made? Do you want to engage in a discussion about his thesis? ... Of course, you don't. That would take effort and actual thinking. It's much easier to make someone into a meme and criticize him for the things, he never was out do to.
In some way GHS is really a troll, but not in the way most people try to depict him. He is the kind of troll who, every time he surfaces, gets people to show their true color, while still providing interesting and thought-provoking material. Just like last month, when he released his (pretty interesting) book and translations of the talestune games, and was again misquoted and badmouthed by people who didn't even read his essay or only skimmed through it to find something they can take out of context and make fun of it. The level of shallowness, pretentiousness and lynch mob mentality in the English VN community is really astonishing.

GHS is indeed a troll, the best kind of troll. Not the kind of troll the VN community wants, but the kind it deserves.

I recently finished Kanojyo-tachi no Ryuugi. Going into the VN, I somehow mixed up this title with another VN, Yuri Kago no Naka, and thought it was going to be a hyper-chuuni novel. Well, it definitely wasn't that, but it was pretty good anyways.   The VN starts out with the MC returning to old home where he sees his older twin sisters for the first time in five years. He is pretty miffed when his older sister Tobari ignores him completely. Especially since he (MC's name is Kotarou) holds a bit of an inferiority complex towards her. She does recruit him to the theatre club in order to perform at the upcoming school festival.  He's going to be playing the main heroine alongside her as the hero. Yep, it's a VN with crossdressing. The MC is voiced, too (hooray!)   I found the BGM well-fitted for each of the scenes. It looks like they paid attention there. Was really impressed by the voice acting for Tobari, Akane, and Suzutsuki. The early dialogue had  a bit of characterization, but the voice acting really gave it life. Though when I saw Seseri's (blue-haired hopelessly genki-naive type) character I cringed at the thought of having to bear with her for the rest of the VN.    I really liked Suzutsuki's (Pink-haired girl) route who I played first. Her route was super short (literally 6-7 scenes!!!), but it had this amazing atmosphere. She ends up being my favourite girl. Next I played Seseri's route, which mostly boring. Then was Akane (the older twin sister). Her route wasn't extensive like I thought it was, but it does provide some important facts about the sisters and their family. After that I skipped the other two minor heriones and went  for the Tobari's route, the true herione's. While doing her route, I still found the events seems pretty underwhelming (just seemed like Kotarou arguing a lot with Tobari). But then the latter part of her route comes, and it's pretty good. At the end of the route there's this big perspective change which pretty much is the culmination of the entire route. It was amazing the first time, but it took me a second read to connect the pieces. Now I finally get why everyone on erogegamescape keeps saying the game exists for the sake of Tobari. Basically the whole game is revolving about Kotarou's (the MC) and Tobari's relationship (or apparent lack of one), and her mental state.   It's kind of an unexpected work (old, heavy character-focus, and yet not being about the normal romance progressions), but the cg, music, voice acting, and characters are all quite good. Would recommend to someone who wants to read a character-focused story and doesn't mind the crossdressing, the unusual combination of elements, or the short length.   As a side note, I think the crossdressing was more to allow Akari and Tobari to exhibit some S-traits during the sex scenes. The sex scenes are generally pretty mild, but the thing is, Kotarou is actually in the M position a lot of the time, which makes it feel more 'out there' than most crossdressing vns. I dunno. Kotarou's not bad relatively speaking, but some of the stuff made me groan a bit inside.    

Porn obviously.
Dis thread is full of hypocrites, lmao.

Porn obviously.
Dis thread is full of hypocrites, lmao.

Porn obviously.
Dis thread is full of hypocrites, lmao.

Porn obviously.
Dis thread is full of hypocrites, lmao.