nohman

As most of you are aware, Tay plans to shift the focus of this site from being mostly about piracy to making Visual Novels popular in the West. As the head honcho of this site it’s his call where to take it, and he has my full support in whatever he decides. Unfortunately he is a very busy man and has limited time with which to plan and scheme and twirl his moustache in ways which inspire dread and despair. Which is where we come in.
 
The purpose of this thread is to help Tay out by constructing a sample document which aims to make things easier for him. This isn’t a document which will argue for the shifting of Fuwanovel’s focus, this thread isn’t to provide a discussion on what Fuwa is or should be, the purpose of this thread is to construct a document which outlines a path forward for Fuwanovel, a path that heads to our new goal as stated by Tay. Even if most of the ideas are not compatible with Tay’s vision, he can still use the template to insert his own ideas which could save valuable time. And if any ideas are useful to him, this will be yet more time saved.
 
And if the worst comes to pass and this thread provides much raucousness, then maybe it might light a fire under his arse (once he becomes less busy) and make him get a move on then that might serve some random and undisclosed purpose as well.
 
This is going to be a “fluid document”, and by that I mean this isn’t an “idea vs idea” type of thing, but instead it will encompass a wide range of ideas simultaneously. It will be a document emphasising a wholistic approach to making VNs popular. So feel free to make suggestions and point out sections which might not be so useful. This doesn’t HAVE to descend into a war, the addition of one idea will not mean the exclusion of another, and most people’s ideas will have a place (initially… heh).
 
With this in mind I will now create several *placeholder posts*. I will post different sections of the document in these posts once they are finished being drafted. These drafts will then be modified, and added to depending on what the good people of the forum suggest. You will have to demonstrate how these ideas will help further the new goal of the site, though.
 
The overview (or the tl;dr version of the document) will be up shortly. I need to fix a part that Maef had problems with, amend others, and add a suggestion.

The search function is not always optimal and sometimes of no use when you don't know exactly what you're looking for, and I think those kind of topics are worthy of being indexed and highlighted so that pertinent discussion isn't lost and serves as a basis for further thinking.

Some notes:
*This is all discussion centering on specific VNs, no topic on the medium as a whole.
*Anything with analysis, review, or any other word that sounds like someone wrote a lengthy amount of text should feature, well, precisely this. Topics marked "discussion" only probably go less in-depth, although not necessarily.
*A discussion should have a minimum of length (number of posts and/or length of the posts themselves) to be featured here.
*Spoilers are of course to be expected in some of those threads, especially in analysis and in topics clearly indicating in their title. Some reviews are spoiler-free though.
*This is typically the kind of threads you SHOULD necro if you feel you have something to add on the subject. Just use common sense and don't directly answer to what someone said 6 months ago, he might not even be around anymore.
*All in alphabetical order. Ctrl+f is your friend.
 
If you notice anything you think should be indexed here, feel free to signal it.
VN Reading Club History:
November - Ayakashibito
December - Forest
February - Shikkoku no Sharnoth
May - Coμ -Kuroi Ryuu to Yasashii Oukoku-
June - Yume Miru Kusuri
July - Osananajimi wa Daitouryou ~ My Girlfriend is the President
Translated Visual Novels:
999 review and discussion
Analogue: A Hate Story discussion
Ayakashibito review and discussion
Cannonball ~Neko Neko Machine Mou Race~ discussion
Cartagra discussion
Comyu:
  Comyu discussion
  Comyu review
Corpse Party discussion
Ever17:
  Ever17 review
  True route discussion
  Sora route discussion
G-senjou no Maou review and discussion
Grisaia no Kajitsu:
  Grisaia favorite routes discussion
  Amane route discussion
  Michiru route discussion. Sort of.
  Yumiko's route discussion (although it's all random Grisaia chatter at this point)
  Grisaia review and discussion
  Grisaia analysis of all the heroines' routes (in construction, Makina, Amane and common route foreshadowing done)
Hoshizora no Memoria review (and ramblings about 2D)
I/O Revision II review and discussion
Kanon: Mari and Sayuri route analysis and discussion
Katawa Shoujo:
  Comparison to The Catcher in the Rye
  Rin's route discussion
Little Busters:
  Little Busters review
  Little Busters review
  Little Busters discussion
Littlewitch Romanesque discussion
Majikoi: Wanko route discussion
Muv-Luv discussion
Muv-Luv Alternative ending discussion
Narcissu analysis and discussion
Planetarian/Narcissu comparison
Remember11 review
Saya no Uta:
  Saya no Uta analysis and discussion
  Saya no Uta review
Sharin no Kuni discussion
Soukoku no Arterial review
Swan Song reviews and discussion
Umineko analysis and discussion
 
 
Untranslated Visual Novels:
Dark Blue review
Eden* review
Gleam Garden no Shoujo review & discussion
Injuu Kagoku review
Insai no Shima review
Iroseka review and discussion (and comparison to HoshiMemo)
Kyonyuu Majo review
Kyonyuu Fantasy Gaiden 2 review
Shinsetsu Ryouki no Ori & Dai 2 Shou review
Subarashiki Hibi discussion
Tsujidou-san no Junai Road review and discussion
Xblaze Code: Embryo review
Unspecific threads:
Alicesoft games general discussion
Clephas' random VN: Clephas reviews VNs he picked up from his backlog recently. All untranslated stuff.
Clephas' VN of the month: Clephas reviews the latest monthly releases of VNs, and elects one of them as "VN of the month".

Welcome to the community. Enjoy your time here and I hope to see you around.

I don't really have a distinctive taste when it comes to music. More recently I've been listening to a lot of blues rock and folk, though. Particularly Beth Hart. 
 
If you feel like it, you can read through a similar topic here and find a number of answers to your question that will give you a strong impression of how the musical tastes fall around here.

How To Read Moege 101 - A Comprehensive Guide
 

 
Preface
      Many people struggle with learning a second language. If it just so happens that you're trying to learn Japanese, you can probably already tell by now that it's not an easy task. I can relate to the tormenting frustration of desperately wanting to read a certain VN, but being unable to merely due to a lack of Japanese proficiency. Having to look up every word in the dictionary is not only time consuming - it's also actually not that productive because chances are, you won't remember half of what you read. You shouldn't dive into a visual novel that's way above your difficulty level. You need to prepare body and soul with some hearty foreplay. Yes, foreplay. But alas, you don't have the slightest idea as to how you should go about doing that. You have my condolences. That's why I am writing this guide - not to teach you how to read Japanese per se, but to make it easier for you to read your very first untranslated 'moege'. After reading a few on your own, you will start to get the feel of Japanese writing, humour, expressions, and maybe even pick up some kanji. I am merely dropping you off at the doorstep - you still have a long road ahead of you. Good luck.
 
1) Understanding How Moege Work
      Moege is derived from the two words, "moe" and "game" (self-explanatory). You're usually going to be paying attention to the characters more than anything else in the game. Sure, they look nice, but what I really mean is their personality. Indeed, personality. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that personality is more important than looks! That only happens in 3D (but let's not get to that right now)... Anyway, there are a select few 'generic' and frankly 'stereotypical' heroine-types that you will find in pretty much every moege. I won't go into too much detail, but I'll describe a few of their unique traits. This will not only help you connect to the heroines better, but it will also help you guess or 'predict' what they are saying (even if you can't read the Japanese) which will be further explained in the next section. I am only going to list five, though I'm sure there are many more out there waiting to assault their onii-chans.The stereotypical heroine archetypes I am going to expand on are:
 
The Tsundere



 
The Senpai



 
The Onee-chan



 
The Klutz



 
The Osananajimi (Childhood Friend)



 
      Now, I realize that there may be a tsundere senpai onee-chan klutz osananajimi somewhere out there, but let's leave that for now. Due to popular demand, I will unveil a brand new section for everyone's favourite (including mine) - the imouto.
 
The Imouto



 
2) Reading Between The Lines
      Now that you have most of the basic heroine-types nailed down, it's time to learn how to read between the lines (or, "I don't know these words, but judging from their facial expressions, tone, the situation at hand, and their stereotype, I can probably guess what's going on!" for short). The point is that you shouldn't get stuck on a few words you don't know. Sometimes it's best to read through context instead. Like I said before, foreplay. You can grind (hue) all those difficult kanji symbols (that you may or may not ever see again) later. That's all just memorization, and a whole lot of studying. But right now we're tackling a more technical aspect of the Japanese language. Now's the time to sit down and enjoy a moege.
 
3) Kanji/Vocab You Should Probably Know
      These are kanji or basic vocab words that you will see in almost every moege. I will add to this list as necessary, so feel free to leave a comment if you think I missed anything key. I will cut it off somewhere so people don't get overwhelmed though, so pick the ones you think show up in 99% of exclusively moege. For now, I will briefly go through them all:
 



 
4) Where To Start
      Honestly, there isn't really a list of VNs I can give you. Besides, that wouldn't be fun. You should read things you think you'll really enjoy. But if moege are not for you, then suck it up. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. I guess all I have to say for now is that Cube, ALcot, and Favorite (albeit games by Favorite are harder reads) are all companies that make great moege that are, at the same time, relatively easy to read. If you find yourself bored to death starting out, feel free to pick another game. If you think it's still too hard for you (this is kinda late but make sure you've mastered basic hiragana and katakana), push on through. Don't stumble every time you come across a word you don't know, or you don't know what's going on. Just playing through will help you, even if just a little.

How much I enjoy a long common route naturally depends on the quality of the visual novel. As long as I don't find a visual novel boring, I much prefer a long common route to a shorter one. A long common route gives more time to world building, character building, and makes for a more organic segue into the character specific routes (or at least generally speaking). If I had to pick one over the other, I guess I would say I would prefer a game to have a long common route as opposed to a short one. Ultimately, you can always use the skip function or load a save after all.
 
I enjoyed Grisaia's common route in particular. The humor never fell flat and each scene developed my impression/interest of Mihama Academy's student body. This might sound strange, but I was actually a bit bummed when the common route concluded.

How much I enjoy a long common route naturally depends on the quality of the visual novel. As long as I don't find a visual novel boring, I much prefer a long common route to a shorter one. A long common route gives more time to world building, character building, and makes for a more organic segue into the character specific routes (or at least generally speaking). If I had to pick one over the other, I guess I would say I would prefer a game to have a long common route as opposed to a short one. Ultimately, you can always use the skip function or load a save after all.
 
I enjoyed Grisaia's common route in particular. The humor never fell flat and each scene developed my impression/interest of Mihama Academy's student body. This might sound strange, but I was actually a bit bummed when the common route concluded.

How much I enjoy a long common route naturally depends on the quality of the visual novel. As long as I don't find a visual novel boring, I much prefer a long common route to a shorter one. A long common route gives more time to world building, character building, and makes for a more organic segue into the character specific routes (or at least generally speaking). If I had to pick one over the other, I guess I would say I would prefer a game to have a long common route as opposed to a short one. Ultimately, you can always use the skip function or load a save after all.
 
I enjoyed Grisaia's common route in particular. The humor never fell flat and each scene developed my impression/interest of Mihama Academy's student body. This might sound strange, but I was actually a bit bummed when the common route concluded.

It didn't.
 
 
#JoinTheResistance

How much I enjoy a long common route naturally depends on the quality of the visual novel. As long as I don't find a visual novel boring, I much prefer a long common route to a shorter one. A long common route gives more time to world building, character building, and makes for a more organic segue into the character specific routes (or at least generally speaking). If I had to pick one over the other, I guess I would say I would prefer a game to have a long common route as opposed to a short one. Ultimately, you can always use the skip function or load a save after all.
 
I enjoyed Grisaia's common route in particular. The humor never fell flat and each scene developed my impression/interest of Mihama Academy's student body. This might sound strange, but I was actually a bit bummed when the common route concluded.

"Canonicity" is a very occidental fandom thing, afaik. Like with the Star Wars absurdities of the x levels of canonicity.
It always seemed to me like japanese authors (couldn't tell what it is for fans) don't really care about that. Now when there are sequels of course it might make a route "more canon" than the other, but meh.
For example the sequels/fandisks for Type-Moon games look as if they are based on a sort of blend of all the routes, or something different altogether - the rule being "don't think too much about it".
 
Overall VNs are a lot about meta-fiction, constructing your own story with elements given to you, exploring the possibilities of one setting - with every experience having the same value as the others. It extends to the fact that japanese pop-culture is extremely trans-media - there's a LN and a manga of about everything, and spin-off on various supports are legion, but in the end they're considered as a whole range of possibilities for a single universe rather than one main series and its spin-off (it's not always the case but there are numerous examples).
 
I could say more about that subject because I think it's really interesting, but I'm thinking about writing a huge wall of text about it some day anyway.

I'm not convinced this qualifies as what you are looking for, but Deardrops has a protagonist that is out of school and has professional, worldly experience. 
 
Nothing else was coming to mind, so I took the liberty of doing this VNDB search for you for English VNs with the tag of Adult Protagonist.

I'm very excited to see the new direction Fuwanovel takes. I am also very appreciative to you Tay for staying with the community and supporting it as you have in spite of all your real life responsibilities and some of the tumultuous changes in the past year. Thanks for all your hard work.
 
<3

I'm very excited to see the new direction Fuwanovel takes. I am also very appreciative to you Tay for staying with the community and supporting it as you have in spite of all your real life responsibilities and some of the tumultuous changes in the past year. Thanks for all your hard work.
 
<3

I'm very excited to see the new direction Fuwanovel takes. I am also very appreciative to you Tay for staying with the community and supporting it as you have in spite of all your real life responsibilities and some of the tumultuous changes in the past year. Thanks for all your hard work.
 
<3

Hey everybody,
 
Full disclosure: I'm still kind of in crisis mode (I've got a personal and family emergency going on), so I won't have time to proof-read or content-screen a second draft of this. Hopefully it comes across clear enough. Purpose of this thread: As I've reviewed recent threads and PMs it became clear to me that I need to speak a little to forum/community changes and direction. I've been accused of being "unreliable", "slow", "conceited", and even "Hitleresque". I choose to laugh those off and keep moving forward.
 
 
"Cleaning House"
Many of you have expressed frustration that the site isn't moving forward. I've repeatedly clarified that the meta-level direction of the website will be addressed starting in September.  We need a better organization to tackle the future, and from now until mid-September, my objective is to restructure the site ("clean house", if you will).
 
What do I mean by cleaning house?
More changes to the organization of the forums Releasing with gratitude many moderators The establishment of a new "board" moderator program open to anybody who wants to help and meets certain requirements A new system for choosing global moderators (meaning there will be a difference between board and global mods) Back-end stability changes A lot of changes to the front site (for which we do have several capable coders, and which are only held up now by host-side processes)  
The "cleaning house" period will be slower until ~ August 21. My personal emergencies and school responsibilities require this timetable. The "hot zone" of changes will run from August 21 to whenever we finish in September, and will encompass the majority of the changes.
 
 
"Burden of Leadership"
So let's be frank: there's too much on my plate. I'm not talking about my mental health, I'm speaking from an organizational angle. People are right to criticize me for being slow in enacting change or rolling out programs -- it's a consequence of my real life responsibilities. I ask that the community be patient -- I didn't ask to be left in a lurch by the departure of my co-admin. I didn't ask for similar departures of previous co-admins. Every time I've sought a partner, I've been left behind with twice the work.
 
So. You should be glad to know that as part of "cleaning house" I'll be restructuring the leadership. I'm not going to give out details right now, but they'll be coming within the next 6 weeks. The fundamental principle of the new leadership structure will be codifying a Fuwanovel charter which will guide the future of the site and give it direction long after I've left
 
 
 
Retirement?
There's been some bizarre PM conversations screencapped and sent to me. Here's some clarification:
 
I am working towards retirement from the site. As I recently commented to sanah: my end-game at Fuwanovel is knowing that the community has a self-image and internal structure strong enough to carry it into the future. I am not going to abandon the community before I achieve those goals. As we get closer to that goal, maybe I'll speak more to why I'd retire and what projects I'm going to start working on, but those conversations are not applicable at the moment. I haven't set a specific timetable for this process. I'll be here for as long as it takes.
 
 
 
Meta-Direction: Torrents
In late 2012 Fuwanovel had two slogans "Visual Novel Repo" and "Make Visual Novels Popular in the West". I think these slogans illustrate well the division in the community (still) between a focus on fan-sharing culture and support of visual novels' development in the West. I plan on angling the community down the second path. 
 
I personally have significant ethical and logistical qualms with fan sharing culture. I acknowledge, however, that providing game torrents is part of Fuwanovel's DNA. I'm not going to change that. I will, however, continue to enforce the rule that we developed very early on to not host licensed games: all torrents for licensed games hosted on the front site will be taken down in September.
 
Many people have asked if I intend to move Fuwanovel into a "torrent-less" future. The answer: no. It's too ingrained in the community zeitgeist and history. Future community leaders will need to determine their threshold of cognitive dissonance and feel comfortable offering pre-patched, non-licensed games.
 
 
 



 
Hm.... Did I forget anything? Feel free to comment or ask questions below. 
 
Here's what I want you to take away from this post: changes are coming. Logistical changes to reorganize the forums/community will be made in a "cleaning house" period which runs from now until it's all done sometime in September. My schedule requires that I roll out changes more slowly from now until August 21, and after the 21st the changes will be rolled out quickly and efficiently. Please be patient during this process: I know that this pace may be frustrating to some, but it's necessary for planning, proper execution, and my own RL schedule.

Welcome to Fuwanovel, I hope you will find the community to your liking.

I think it's important to the site's integrity to make sure licensed material stays off or gets taken off, since all that'll ever come from it is trouble. When stuff gets licensed it means Fuwanovel has done it's intended goal of spreading knowledge about the game; The added publicity ensures that the game will be well seeded already - we're not talking about niche games here.

What I would propose instead is for Fuwanovel to try and be a more approachable version of both the TLWiki and VNDB: Keep the Grisaia sub page, remove the download link and guest comments and possibly add news regarding the official TL's status.

Best of both worlds, since unlicensed games will be available for download, additional traffic will come regarding the official translation, and Fuwanovel makes an effort in trying to be an informational instead of a pirate site.

It already doesn't really feel like one since the need to constantly justify the pirate agenda just vanished with Aaeru. It can focus on being all about VNs, everyone's love for them and making sure the culture, games and information about ongoing releases get spread.

I'm all for the removal of the torrents, but take this incident and try to refocus over it.

Its clear to me that the site leadership now has its head so far up its own ass it can't realize how a basic economy works. Steve, Fuwanovel will be cutting into sales from Sekai, sales they can ill afford to lose as a new company. Provide a free option, and I promise you most people will go for the free option. Only the people with principle will actually buy the priced option. Kaguya, just because people will pirate these games, doesn't mean Fuwanovel should aid them. Let them go other places. Fuwanovel wants to be different, but right now, TL Wiki is doing more than Fuwanovel ever did. At least they have the common sense to remove licensed stuff. Rest assured I will not stop fighting you guys on this until I am either banned, or things change. 
 
Last summer I could not afford ef, so did I go and pirate it? Absolutely not. I saved up enough until I could buy it. Same with Kara no Shoujo. Hell, I bought 4 total Steins Gate Limited Editions for people among other VNs. These things are a luxury and not a right. 

Well it's finally done. In side the spoiler contains a literary analysis of Mai Kawasumi and Sayuri Kurata from the visual novel and anime Kanon. I explore the complexities of their friendship through analyzing them as individuals. I don't want to say any thing more because of spoilers. Speaking of spoilers, if you have not watched the Kanon 2006 anime, or read Mai and Sayuri's routes in the Kanon Visual Novel then you have been warned. However, if you read Mai's route without reading Sayuri's, I personally wouldn't stray away from this paper as Sayuri's route is only around an extra 30 min - 60 min of original text. So I don't think you would be spoiling yourself from much, but in the end it's your choice. This paper does not spoil any other character routes.  
 
A few notes about how I incorporated quotes: 
 
1) Non-Directional Translations created the English patch for the Kanon visual novel, so my quotes are of their translation. 
 
2) After I finish a quote I cite the character's route by writing their name, and then I include the in-game day that it was said. For example: if Mai said "I like Usagi-san", and the in-game day was January 15th. I would write it like this: Mai said, "I like Usagi-san"(Mai, Jan 15). This is significant because... (It's not).
 

I find the amount of blue names on #5 kinda frightening. The day Tay falls into the hands of the lolicons I'm gonna be in a serious pinch

I think 6 is awesome and I won't be switching. Sorry peeps.
 
It doesn't matter if it wins or not, it's about honesty and staying true to your beliefs. If it doesn't win then it's fine, the people will have spoken and I will accept the result with a smile. There will be a smile on my face because I know that I stayed consistent with my beliefs... and also because I'll have cursed those who voted against it with the annoying trend of having your pants keep falling down whenever you talk with members of the opposite sex.
 
Have a pleasant day people

Answer me this you anti- subforum people. Why the actual fuck is having another sub forum such a bad thing? It is literally a few lines of text extra. Is it because you might have to work a little more to make sure things are in the right place? God forbid a mod actually have to work a little at something instead of spamming lolis all day and spouting lies and anti-change bullshit. 

Guess ill add my propaganda image too:
 

The Sending in FFX gives me chills pretty much everytime I see it. From this year: the moment's leading to you climbing to the attic in Gone Home The entirity of Karazahn in WoW. The opening of Red Dead Redemption Entering Rapture in Bioshock Oh, and probably my favorite one ever, the fight with the Boss at the end of MGS3.