Polycentric

Today I got six Japanese cassette tapes from '80s - including two albums by Akina Nakamori

Two ancient moege VNs:
PS2 edition of Konneko

And one of early Purple Soft's titles - Akiiro Renka:

I found some nice deals on amazon again
Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na -Brighter than Dawning Blue- for PC - Windows 7 Support Edition and ToHeart2 DX PLUS - Regular Edition

I've read fan-TLs of both titles, but it's nice to have originals. And I think one day I'm going to reread them untranslated. I'm especially curious about ToHeart2, since this edition has some additional content and routes from fandisc (which seems to have very polarised reviews ). Also, H-scenes in ToHeart 2 XRated felt tacked-on and out of character, so I'm looking forward to the all-ages version (After all, in case of this title, original was all-ages, with H version coming year later)
BTW, before I noticed, I gathered quite a lot of physical Japanese (and one translated) VNs

From left to right:
Tenohira o, Taiyou ni Kanon Memorial Edition Natsu no Ame Sakura Strasse Sukimazakura to Uso no Machi (without box) World End Syndrome (the only translated one in this bunch) White Album Kono Oozora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete ~Cruise Sign~ Himawari no Kyoukai to Nagai Natsuyasumi To Heart 2 DX PLUS Mashiro Iro Symphony ~mutsu  no hana~ Toradora! Sorairo Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku o True Love Story To Heart PSE Ano Hi no Tabibito, Fureau Mirai Yoake Mae yori Ruri Iro na ~Brighter than a dawning blue When did that all happened? I still remember swearing that I'd never buy physical edition of VN 😮
(I'm also currently waiting for PS3 version of White Album 2 and PS2 versions of Yotsunoha and Konneko - they should arrive next week)

Well, they claim they dodged it, but actually it just bounced off the plot armor. 

It's been a while since I updated my progress on this thread. Here are a few things I read recently and consider worth talking about. Not in any particular order.
Official releases:

Kumo desu ga (volume 7). Not posting the cover for the 7th volume because it's full of spoilers. I was afraid that the quality might start going downhill after the big reveal at the end of Volume 5, and I'm so glad that it didn't happen. The newest volume managed to impress me quite a lot, even if it was almost completely action-focused. The new plot twists are just as amazing as the ones in volume 5. I want more!

Honzuki (part 2 volumes 1 and 2). Well, I finally caught up with what I read in the WN version, and it looks like this book is steadily getting better and better. The worldbuilding is getting more and more detailed. In these volumes we get some glimpses of how the magic and noble society function in this world. At the end of the second volume it started going in a bit weird direction, and it makes me extremely cautions that it seemingly decided to play straight some annoying isekai tropes that it was avoiding before that, but I'm pretty sure everything will be fine. At least, the epilogue was actually pretty emotional. For some reason, while it was good, I never really felt as much emotional connection with the anime as I do with the books.
Also, speaking about the anime, the first scene of the first episode was finally shown, and I think like it was mistranslated there. Actually, I still have no idea why the anime even decided to spoil this scene if the way it was shown makes the viewer to get some wrong ideas.
~
So, I caught up with Arifureta (volumes 5-10). Well, just as expected it's still just the same trashy trash as the first four volumes were, but it's also very entertaining to read. Honestly, I still don't understand why I even like this LN. There are so many things that I would normally expect to hate. At the same time, It somehow manages to always remain interesting. I guess, the main strong point in this book is that the pacing is actually pretty good. Unlike in most LNs, you can more or less always tell what the end goal of the story is, and there's nothing that feels like filler. Actually, I think I like the last two volumes the most in the LN so far. I totally didn't see the plot twist in volume 10 coming, even if now I understand that it was pretty obvious from the start.
Also, come on, man, stop growing your harem. It's way too disturbing at this point.

Average Abilities (volume 8 ). Well, this volume disappointed me a bit. The comedy is getting a bit old and repetative (I think, many of the jokes were already used in the author's earlier works), and the story is getting nowhere. You know, this is a good example of how light novels that start very starong often run out of steam if they continue for too long.
Fan-translations.

「Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na」 to Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareta no de, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai  (I Was Told That I Wouldn’t Be Able To Defeat The Demon Lord And Kicked Out Of The Hero’s Party, So Now I Just Want An Ordinary Life In The Capital) (volumes 1-3) is amazing. It starts with a pretty usual WN fantasy trope where the MC with seemingly useless ability suddenly turns out to be pretty strong, but there's much more in the story than just that. Quite definitely deserves an official release. First of all, it's yuri with decent plot, interesting itrigue, ineresting characters and good action scenes. Secondly, it's literally the first time when I found horror in an LN so disturbing. I don't know, for some reason the body horror gets to me a lot better than the stuff about ghost or zombies. Definitely going to follow this one!
Apotheosis of a Demon – A Monster Evolution Story. (The whole story - the translation is finished). Well, another decent WN that for some weird reason never got an official release. (yet?) Overall, I wouldn't call it particularly deep or novel, but the story is immensely entertaining. It has a rather interesting and, to my knowledge, unique twist on the "reincarnated in the game world" genre, where unaware players are used by the governments and the corporation for getting resources from a real parallel world. Also, I'm pretty surprised in which direction Shedy's character developed, since I expected something different.

I Decided to Not Compete and Quietly Create Dolls Instead. Well, as it often happens in the WN world, it has an interesting idea, but rather mediocre realization and not so great translation. I'm only mentioning it here because of a certain twist from the still untranslated chapters which I spoiled for myself. I definitely didn't expect this type of mindfuck from an otome villainess LN.
Other than this one, there are a few more shoujo LNs/WNs that I started, but all of them are either pretty bad or still don't have enough translated chapters to judge.

Decided to purchase some kyoani stuff to boost sales a bit.

So, I found this obscure idol group with a slight retro-pop/R&B feel and it became a constant source of amusement for me for some unexpected reasons...
Otaku idol, lvl hard:

Idol industry reality check, lvl soul-crushing:

Or another possible answer:

Can you please not write about stuff you have no idea about

Eden*

John Cena's Sexy High School Adventure!!! 2

Life with a cute pet.

We've gotta talk.