NowItsAngeTime

The Visual Monthly Recap video for June 2021 is out! Quite a lot of new translation reveals, surprise releases, and even a controversial announcement of an 18+ eroge going All-Ages Only in the official Western release (But it has new content).
 

I've seen some people argue about how the "VN medium" is dying. The arguments on both sides on whether it's dying or not make sense but outside some companies closing or losing employees I can't really confirm either way.
What I can talk about, is how visual novels can improve their storytelling so the medium doesn't become too complacent, and I think applies to both Japanese-made VNs and any made outside it. I'd like to make a video about it but what wanted to get some feedback from other people in case I missed any major points below.
General Improvements
Narration/Monologue padding. I know one of the main reasons you read a visual novel is specifically so you can have narration, monologuing, and more time to build up to something. However, unless part of the is narration is specifically building up to something, I think a lot of this padding could easily be trimmed or removd to get to the point(s) a lot quicker. Protagonist voice acting. I know there are many reasons why you wouldn't include it, whether it's costly, or you want to increase the "self-insert" factor. The self-insert factor would make more sense in a nukige or even a romance-heavy story. But if part of a story is to have some semblance of a story or even emotional drama parts, it would make sense for the protagonist to be voiced in the non-18+ content. Protagonists with actual personality. The "plain" protagonist thing works in romance-heavy VNs where the focus is on the love interests. However, in anything with any semblance of plot or character development it would be nice if more characters had... any personality. I don't expect them all to be amazing, but I'd like more writers to at least try more. Some may complain they'd rather have a plain protag than an annoying/whiny protag, but I disagree, as I consider that a test that can go well depending on the story, or if not just a lesson learned and to try something different. More post-high school settings. Some story-oriented visual novels have ventured into post-high school age characters. But a vast majority still at least have implied high school age characters at the same minimum. And moege very clearly uses 18 year old high school trope vast majority of the time. It says something when Making * Lovers is one of the most popular moege out there now, popular enough to get a sequel in name. Moege/Charage
A better way to differentiate between the two. Part of why I put these these two together is because sometimes it can be difficult to categorize some VNs since they can have a mix of fluffy slice of life and character-development oriented drama. It can be fine to have a bit of some drama in moe VNs, and some fluff in character-development oriented ones, but from what I see the fans of either moege vs charage would prefer a focused experience. For moege, more unique character archetypes or clubs. I know part of the appeal is just using archetypes of cute heroines and giving them different designs and making cute romantic stories. However, I think it would be good to either explore unique takes on character archetypes, or at least make more interesting, unique clubs to make characters have more interesting romantic motivations For charage, a way to make most character development stick. So many character-development oriented visual novels are route based, so it can be disappointing to see some well-developed characters lose it when you decide to go to a new route. Part of why I love Sharin no Kuni is because they found a way to make character development stick for all characters canonically, no matter which heroine you choose to romance at the end. There is an option for more non-route based visual novels but those don't seem to get as popular.
Action/Chuuni
Have a way for the action parts to be more animated. I'm not asking for the VN devs to have fully animated fights for VNs, might as well just watch an action anime at that point. I do think a little animation in certain key moments would help since a lot of the time action scenes in visual novels are just 30+ page essays describing every single detail that happens a fight with a single CG can ruin the pacing. Mystery
Make the endings worth all the buildup. A whole bunch of popular mystery visual novel series I see have endings that disappoint people in various ways. I think a lot of times the mystery parts are just set up so well that it can be hard to meet the expectations by the ending. I think more careful planning and having a clear endgoal of what the reader learns at the end will help set up the mystery parts to be both great and consistent, which will in turn make the ending good too. Horror
Just more made in general. You would think this would be a great medium for visual novel writers to capitalize on. The few horror visual novels we have seem good and varied, I just don't think there's enough to give proper criticism. Otomege
More genres. It's safe to say that visual novels with male protagonists have a much higher spread of genres. Meanwhile, at least from what I noticed, the amount of genres in otomege in general is limited. Admittedly, it doesn't help that the otomege in general are much lower. Western Made VNs / OELVNs / EVNs
Branching out more into their own. Admittedly a few of the most popular ones clearly take after Japanese VNs, but still mostly did their own thing. From the bunch I've looked around, I think most western made visual novels still try to attempt to copy the Japanese in terms of art style, settings, and story telling. I think they should just keep trying to do their own thing, eventually something will be big enough for other devs to be inspired from. This genre can't really rely on a Katawa / DDLC every 10 years. Can't really comment on any more genres, anyone else have any input on this?

Where's your video gonna be posted so I can watch it when it's out?

Weird you made this topic, as the past couple of days I've been working on a script for a video that in many ways is all about this. Ultimately though, I think the only real solution is for actual writers (the type of people who write novels) to start writing VNs. While I won't say I am exactly optimistic that this will start happening, there are a couple reasons why I think this might happen.
Simply, nobody really reads anymore. I mean that somewhat hyperbolically, but if you look at statistics the amount of people who read novels and short stories for entertainment has been dropping practically every year. I read a statistic a couple years ago that only around 20% of American's read more than 2 books in an entire year. The new media, notably video games and online videos have completely enthralled two generation (most millennials and the entirety of Gen Z). And lets not forget, that even boomers, many of whom qualify as being elderly, were the original TV generation.  
One of my favorite self-published books to come out in the past couple of years is false kotatsu. It's a great novella, and nobody knows about it. It has no reviews on Amazon, and on Smashwords the one review of it was actually written by a personal friend of mine (who recommended it to me in the first place). If you want people to read your novel these days, you need one of two things, and unfortunately talent isn't one of them. You need to already have a decent social media following, or you need to have a solid connection in the publishing industry. And even then, the amount of people who will read your work, compared to the amount of people playing the latest games, even indie games, is miniscule.
So if you want to tell stories, and you actually want people to experience them, the one (false) option people think they have is to make a video game. Now this is going to be a point I will go into detail in my video, but while video games can certainly feature great writing, for a game to be good it is critical for its level of interaction to also be good. Interactivity is always at least slightly more important than writing in video games, even in plot focused ones. And if you disagree with me, please wait for my video because I go into much more detail in that (I already wrote that part of my script).
Visual Novels on the other hand, are a medium that function under a different system of poetics than games do. Visual Novels is where writing is top dog. A great story won't save a game with completely ass gameplay. But great writing, combined with at least mediocre visuals and audio, can make for a great VN. Because visual novels are multimedia, and in many respects close to video games, the coked out brains of a generation raised on the screen can appreciate them more naturally than many of them can stomach to read a conventional book.
Writers who want to share their stories would be wise imo, to start using that talent in making VNs. And likewise, visual novels would strongly benefit by having competent writers migrate over. Since it's a medium, that appreciates good writing above all else
 
Tl;DR: This is exactly why I'm planning to make a video about everything I just wrote, because it feels like in many cases nobody wants to read anything longer than a single paragraph

I've seen some people argue about how the "VN medium" is dying. The arguments on both sides on whether it's dying or not make sense but outside some companies closing or losing employees I can't really confirm either way.
What I can talk about, is how visual novels can improve their storytelling so the medium doesn't become too complacent, and I think applies to both Japanese-made VNs and any made outside it. I'd like to make a video about it but what wanted to get some feedback from other people in case I missed any major points below.
General Improvements
Narration/Monologue padding. I know one of the main reasons you read a visual novel is specifically so you can have narration, monologuing, and more time to build up to something. However, unless part of the is narration is specifically building up to something, I think a lot of this padding could easily be trimmed or removd to get to the point(s) a lot quicker. Protagonist voice acting. I know there are many reasons why you wouldn't include it, whether it's costly, or you want to increase the "self-insert" factor. The self-insert factor would make more sense in a nukige or even a romance-heavy story. But if part of a story is to have some semblance of a story or even emotional drama parts, it would make sense for the protagonist to be voiced in the non-18+ content. Protagonists with actual personality. The "plain" protagonist thing works in romance-heavy VNs where the focus is on the love interests. However, in anything with any semblance of plot or character development it would be nice if more characters had... any personality. I don't expect them all to be amazing, but I'd like more writers to at least try more. Some may complain they'd rather have a plain protag than an annoying/whiny protag, but I disagree, as I consider that a test that can go well depending on the story, or if not just a lesson learned and to try something different. More post-high school settings. Some story-oriented visual novels have ventured into post-high school age characters. But a vast majority still at least have implied high school age characters at the same minimum. And moege very clearly uses 18 year old high school trope vast majority of the time. It says something when Making * Lovers is one of the most popular moege out there now, popular enough to get a sequel in name. Moege/Charage
A better way to differentiate between the two. Part of why I put these these two together is because sometimes it can be difficult to categorize some VNs since they can have a mix of fluffy slice of life and character-development oriented drama. It can be fine to have a bit of some drama in moe VNs, and some fluff in character-development oriented ones, but from what I see the fans of either moege vs charage would prefer a focused experience. For moege, more unique character archetypes or clubs. I know part of the appeal is just using archetypes of cute heroines and giving them different designs and making cute romantic stories. However, I think it would be good to either explore unique takes on character archetypes, or at least make more interesting, unique clubs to make characters have more interesting romantic motivations For charage, a way to make most character development stick. So many character-development oriented visual novels are route based, so it can be disappointing to see some well-developed characters lose it when you decide to go to a new route. Part of why I love Sharin no Kuni is because they found a way to make character development stick for all characters canonically, no matter which heroine you choose to romance at the end. There is an option for more non-route based visual novels but those don't seem to get as popular.
Action/Chuuni
Have a way for the action parts to be more animated. I'm not asking for the VN devs to have fully animated fights for VNs, might as well just watch an action anime at that point. I do think a little animation in certain key moments would help since a lot of the time action scenes in visual novels are just 30+ page essays describing every single detail that happens a fight with a single CG can ruin the pacing. Mystery
Make the endings worth all the buildup. A whole bunch of popular mystery visual novel series I see have endings that disappoint people in various ways. I think a lot of times the mystery parts are just set up so well that it can be hard to meet the expectations by the ending. I think more careful planning and having a clear endgoal of what the reader learns at the end will help set up the mystery parts to be both great and consistent, which will in turn make the ending good too. Horror
Just more made in general. You would think this would be a great medium for visual novel writers to capitalize on. The few horror visual novels we have seem good and varied, I just don't think there's enough to give proper criticism. Otomege
More genres. It's safe to say that visual novels with male protagonists have a much higher spread of genres. Meanwhile, at least from what I noticed, the amount of genres in otomege in general is limited. Admittedly, it doesn't help that the otomege in general are much lower. Western Made VNs / OELVNs / EVNs
Branching out more into their own. Admittedly a few of the most popular ones clearly take after Japanese VNs, but still mostly did their own thing. From the bunch I've looked around, I think most western made visual novels still try to attempt to copy the Japanese in terms of art style, settings, and story telling. I think they should just keep trying to do their own thing, eventually something will be big enough for other devs to be inspired from. This genre can't really rely on a Katawa / DDLC every 10 years. Can't really comment on any more genres, anyone else have any input on this?

My newest Visual Novel Monthly Recap show is up for any releases or news for May 2021. Some notable highlights include a Loopers demo fantranslation, official TL announcement, among other things. See more in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAPqJhld30 

My newest Visual Novel Monthly Recap show is up for any releases or news for May 2021. Some notable highlights include a Loopers demo fantranslation, official TL announcement, among other things. See more in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAPqJhld30 

Made a new video if anyone has ever wanted to learn Japanese for visual novels but don't feel they have the confidence or time to. Hopefully this can ease some of your concerns  on the learning JP front or the setting up grabbing text from the VN itself.
 

I made a "Buddy Meter" quiz about myself. 10 questions, mostly visual novel related, to see how much people know about me and my opinions.
I'm interested in how many you get right:
https://buddymeter.com/quiz.html?q=lJFfma8

https://www.offgamers.com/game-card/game-point/johren-credits-global
So if you wanted to buy visual novels like Meteor World Actor or Megasuki games that are limited to Johren store, and are unable/prefer not to use credit card directly on Johren, you can now buy them through this method.

Well if it helps, there's a poster of Riho very early on in common route:

This romhack dialogue is quite impressive my friend. You should make an updated one for the 2020s

You just reminded me of a joke Fire Emblem hack I did 5 years ago about the VN community:
 
Part 2 is more focused on Fuwa, and heavily references the community back when this was made (2015). I suppose it's sorta Fuwa history kinda.

I made a kinda new/unique video: talking about major online visual novel communities I was aware of. Visual Novels are kind of a niche medium so I wanted to highlight some of the more popular ones.
Since Fuwanovel is still one of the decently active ones there, decided to include talking about it.
 

You could try Meteor World Actor for a strong and skilled MC (though he tends to be too lazy to do it a lot of time but it's part of his character)

I made a kinda new/unique video: talking about major online visual novel communities I was aware of. Visual Novels are kind of a niche medium so I wanted to highlight some of the more popular ones.
Since Fuwanovel is still one of the decently active ones there, decided to include talking about it.
 

I made a kinda new/unique video: talking about major online visual novel communities I was aware of. Visual Novels are kind of a niche medium so I wanted to highlight some of the more popular ones.
Since Fuwanovel is still one of the decently active ones there, decided to include talking about it.
 

I made a kinda new/unique video: talking about major online visual novel communities I was aware of. Visual Novels are kind of a niche medium so I wanted to highlight some of the more popular ones.
Since Fuwanovel is still one of the decently active ones there, decided to include talking about it.
 

38 unreleased visual novels, with a million more well on the way

38 unreleased visual novels, with a million more well on the way

38 unreleased visual novels, with a million more well on the way

38 unreleased visual novels, with a million more well on the way