RedK

Mirai Nostalgia is the game that turned Purple Soft around.  After Ashita no Kimi to Au Tame ni, the company produced a number of middling and poor quality games, and it looked like Purple Software was going to fade into the background, like a lot of other companies that prospered during the 'Golden Age'.  Then, all of the sudden, they released this game...  and they regained the hearts of their followers, leading to a series of high quality releases, including Hapymaher, Amatsutsumi, and Aoi Tori.
Mirai Nostalgia follows an extensive cast of characters... a group of friends centering primarily around the protagonist Youichi and Uta (called Hime by the rest of the group).  Like most high quality VNs with a lot of SOL, the interactions with the friend characters and non-heroines are lively and vitally important to fleshing out the setting and characters as a group and as individuals. 
The Protagonist
Kudou Youichi- Youichi is a lazy young man who is utterly incompetent at all forms of housework.  He lives alone (at first) with the ancient bakeneko Kuro (who has apparently been alive for over a thousand years) and is a weak esper, possessing telekinesis and an unstable teleportation ability.  In obedience to his family traditions, he keeps his powers hidden from all but those few others around him that also possess powers.  Youichi is, by nature, a very calm, accepting individual who instinctively puts others first, often disregarding his own well-being if faced with the needs of others.  He is also generally on the lowest rung of the family ladder (even the cat is above him), and he spends a lot of his time accommodating the females in his life (Shizuku and his little sisters especially). 
The Heroines
Kasuga Iori- Iori is a traditional black-haired beauty and a miko... with an airgun and immensely powerful telekinetic abilities (think being able to erase someone from existence with pure kinetic force).  She is also constantly threatening Youichi's life, for reasons she declines to mention to him, and her temper is almost always sharp-edged.  She is definitely S by nature.  Despite this apparently violent nature, she also has a deep capacity for love and compassion, and she is quite capable of forgiving a lot from those she cares about (though Youichi apparently pushes her over the edge).
Hatori Uta- Youichi's osananajimi, the daughter of the CEO of a large electronics company, and the spiritual center of the group of friends that lies at the center of the story.  She definitely marches by her own drummer, living life as she wants to live it and ignoring inconvenient realities completely.  All of the group of friends can't help but love her, and she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.  She is a heavy gamer and loves nothing more than beating the shit out of Youichi in competitive gaming.
Kudou Nono- The older of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a genkikko who does the vault in track and field.  She loves to exercise, loves to eat, and loves her oniichan (not necessarily in that order, depending on her priorities at any given moment).  She always has a smile on her face and can make friends with just about anyone.
Kudou Hina- The younger of Youichi's twin stepsisters, a sharp-tongued beauty with glasses who rules the Kudou family with an iron fist.  A natural dictator, she openly states that her goal is to become the next student council president and enslave the student body to her will.  She adores her niisan, but she doesn't let that stop her from insulting him constantly and prodding him into doing what she wants him to do.  Where Nono is the type that wears her heart on her sleeve, Hina is the type that has quiet depths beneath the surface.
Anna- Anna is an esper who has traveled from the future to the past, in order to change the timeline she came from.  She states that the future Youichi denied her confession of love, and she also presents herself as the most powerful esper in existence.  She is generally a prankster, playful and easygoing, taking endless pleasure in teasing Youichi.  However, she is quite obviously hiding a lot of things from him...  She is also the true heroine.
The Other Characters
Hatori Ei- Uta's elder brother, a rootless wanderer who travels the world for years at a time.  His generally irresponsible nature makes him the butt of jokes for most of the group of friends, and he and Shizuku are rivals for the position of 'elder caretakers' in the group.
Hoshikawa Shizuku- The all-powerful student council president, Youichi's cousin, an immensely powerful clairvoyant, and the 'elder sister' of the group.  Most of the group's members have resigned themselves to being her slaves, and when the whim takes her, she drags them all into her schemes and plots.  She cares deeply about the other members of the group, but her position as an elder sister often puts her in the position of having to think of what is best for everyone.
Sanada Kanata- The waitress at a local cafe, one of Youichi's osananajimis, and an infamous dojikko.  She shines the most as the butt of jokes or when being dragged around by Shizuku or caught up in her schemes.  Everybody teases her, but they all love her, too. 
Kase Touya- An unfortunate young man who finds himself in the same position as Kanata most of the time (the butt of jokes and getting dragged into trouble by Shizuku).  While he is good-looking, because of his overly eager manner, most girls don't take him seriously, and he has yet to manage to get a girlfriend.  He and Youichi often commiserate about their treatment by the girls in the group.
Kuro- A thousand year old bakeneko (youkai cat) who has advised the Kudou family for generations and is one of the 'people' who raised Youichi.  Once an immensely powerful youkai, time has taken its toll, and now he only retains the ability to speak mentally to those who possess esper abilities.  Immensely dignified, wise, and gentle by nature, Youichi's trust in him as an advisor is absolute.  While Kuro will advise if asked or if he thinks it is truly needed, he doesn't believe in 'holding the student's hand' (figuratively speaking) and is perfectly willing to sit back and let Youichi make his own mistakes. 
Kasuga Haru- Iori's mother, an easygoing nurse and sometime coach to the track and field team, she is an immensely strong person (mentally and spiritually).  Her capacity for love is as deep and strong as her daughter's, and one can see the results in Iori's private interactions with her.  She does share Iori's S side though.
The story
Mirai Nostalgia's story begins with the protagonist's first contact with Anna, the supposed 'girl from the future' and the return of his twin imoutos, Nono and Hina after several years apart.  Soon after, he encounters Iori, and his peaceful life is suddenly overturned as a result.  This is a nakige, much like the other games Purple Soft has made since, but its style is more 'traditional' (closer to the format Key pioneered, albeit with a stronger central story).  My suggested play order for this game is Hina>Nono>Uta>Iori>Anna.  The reasons are pretty obvious if you play the game, but I'll go ahead and outline them here.  I basically put them in order from 'least relevant to the central story' to 'most relevant'.  Hina's path is by far the weakest of the five, which is probably inevitable in retrospect (Hina's character is hard to grasp as a heroine).  Nono is a bit stronger as a heroine, but the events leading up to the climax of the story felt forced in comparison to the events that led to her and Youichi becoming lovers.  Uta's path is a bit more fantastical in some ways, mostly because of an unexpected turn of events caused by Uta's dependent personality.  Iori's path... is emotionally powerful, not the least because it reveals the biggest reason why Anna returned to the past.  Anna's path... is a cryfest.  I cried through roughly a third of Anna's path both times I played this game, simply because it was just that good.
The audio
This game's music is slightly above the standard quality for commercial VNs, so it is noteworthy in that sense.  However, this was also the VN where Purple Soft began to seriously typecast the company's favored voice actors (Kazane in particular), and so you can pretty much tell the personality of a Purple Soft character by the sound of their voice, in a generalized sense, lol.
Visually
The first time Purple Soft used Koku for their visuals was in this game, and for those who have played Hapymaher or Chrono Clock, the style will be familiar by now.
Overall
This game is a nice nakige with a strong mix of humorous slice of life and powerful emotional moments.  If you want a good nakige to sit down and read through that is less moe-dependent than a Key VN, this is an excellent choice.

Hello! Glad to see you reading this.
Welcome to the Anti-Blonde blog! This is a blog where we hate on blonde girls because it is a bad hair color. So I thought I'd finally write my first blog post here after the Riddle Joker one. It is 1AM currently so don't expect quality.
 
Today I went out with friends for the first time in maybe 2 years lul and there was this cute blonde girl who was so sweet and fun that I decided that I need to get my own one that I can hug and have sit on my lap. Uguu
 
以上です

So I've been playing Fureraba for the whole day, and I have to say I really like it.
Since I like it so much, I'm going to walk through the first few hours. Only real spoilers it might included would be for the first hour. Otherwise, just an endless torrent of funny scenes.
And that's it for the scenes before we start getting choices.
Next time, probably screenshots of a route, and those will contain spoilers for the route.

Shadow of The Colossus for the PS4 is a remake of the PS2 game released back in 1876. The graphics hasn't been lightly touched here and there to make another profit from idiots like me who buy a game they already played and beaten. The graphics have been worked from the ground up to appear like modern day graphics. The game supports 4k resolution, and the environment has been reworked to include more textures, such as grass and rocks. You may be asking yourself "Mitch, the hell are you doing writing anything? Your grammar and sentence structure is so bad that I've contemplated blocking your illiterate ass several times." and you would be write. You may also be asking yourself why these details matter at all. Who cares about a little grass and some added rocks here and there? Well, you see with most remastered's they simply just up the engines lighting and maybe a few fixes on textures and character models, but to have a complete remake? That's something to be praised for. How many times has a game been just essentially re-released as a "remastered" and hardly anything was added?
 
I mean, just look at the major differences from ps2, ps3 and the ps4.
 

 
There is an obvious difference between each version outside of just simple furthering the render distance and upping textures. The PS4 version is the version you must have. It brings to life a level of definition that honors the original creators art.
 

 
What else the remake adds is a photo mode with filters that can be accessible at any point by pressing down on the d-pad. New collectibles, the game keeps tracks of your statistics, and changes the controls a bit while still keeping the old school feel.
 
Speaking of the old school feel, all you do is still kill colossi still. No new enemies, no hidden collectibles to gather except for some gold coins which no one is sure what they do if anything, no new colossi, just the same old giant, albeit pretty empty world. Of course, this emptiness could've been intentional and not simple a limitation of what the ps2 can handle. Now, there are bigger worlds from the ps2 era with more going on, such as GTA San Andreas, but you have to keep in mind that structurally, these are two different games. Now, I know its hard to wrap your head around the fact that this

 
is not the same as this,

 
but please bear with me here. GTA San Andreas focused on the feel of a large, living, breathing city. With citizens going about their day, gyms, fast food joints and a plethora of side activities. But the character models for GTA SA was very plain as far as animation is concerned. Sure there were unique ones with characters having arms stuck to their side, some people who slouch as they walk, etc, etc. While Shadow of The Colossus's character animations were complex. The main character flailed his arms around like he was constantly trying to shake something off, but it was detailed nonetheless. And of course there's the massive colossi's animations as well. Each was unique in design and in animation. This of course took up space on the memory and it worked.
 
But enough of that, lets go back a little. Lets just take a step back from our monitors and look at the decision to keep the world practically bare to maybe give the player and the character you control a sense of mystery and forbiddeness in the land. The character is already doing something that is seems atrocious to his kind and even the gods as he is slowly punished for slaying these ancient creatures for a selfish reason, that is, to bring back a woman who has died. Apparently sacrificed for some ritual as well. The sense of loneliness is exactly what the character is. Alone. He acts on his own decision to bring a life that has already gone frolm the world and apparently for a pre-established reason. But dammit, he's gonna do it! He will climb that forbidden mountain, even if it means his life! He is being selfish but he must see it through for the one he loves!
 
Of course, take that as you will. Still doesn't change the fact that it is quite empty aside from lizard tails and fruits to eat. Something carried over from the ps2 that back then wasn't as big an issue as it would've been today if it was first released today.
 
A trip down memory lane except better than you remembered. With all the high resolution textures and character models your eyes can barely handle. And, for those who have been curios about this games hype back in the day but never got around to it, now's your chance... assuming it goes on sale, because 40 bucks is a bit much, despite my weak will caving into the idea of owning this game.
 

 

Well, as of thirty-nine minutes ago, it is officially my birthday (as of the time I checked at the beginning of making this post).  I have a lot of things to reflect on this year. 
I am now thirty-six, settling into the beginnings of middle-age, knowing my lifestyle will probably kill me before I hit fifty. 
I'm a sugar addict, I love fatty foods, I make my own alcoholic drinks (this year, a mixed fruit wine that actually turned out well and was much easier than the rum and hard root beer I did last year). 
I sit on my ass eighty percent of the time, I am hugely fat...
... and I'm surprisingly happy.  I won't say I don't have my down moments.  Looking back, I regret not going for more athletic pursuits while my knees and back could still stand them.  I regret not trying for a more regular and less... frustrating line of work.  However, I can honestly say that, for all its frustrations, I actually seem to like being a fat, balding otaku who has pretensions at being  some kind of VN guru (lol).
I do wish that I could fit into a plane seat, lol.  If I ever go to Japan, it is going to have to be a sea trip, since buying two plane tickets for one person is both embarrassing and more than a little expensive.
I hate my work, but I'm good at it and, in good times, it pays well, so I keep doing it.
So what would I change? 
Honestly, it is hard to say.  I won't pretend I'm all love and joy when it comes to life.  I have too much toxic waste going through my brain for that (I just happened to have gained just enough maturity not to feed the trolls constantly *smiles dryly*).  I'm fundamentally a passive person once I set foot outside my hobbies, preferring not to do anything I don't absolutely have to do.  I'm also negative and misanthropic... but is that stuff I actually want to change?
*shrugs*
I've never been any other way, so it is impossible to say.  However, every year I hit this day and wonder what could have been, which probably says everything that needs to be said about my experiences with life, for all my proclamations of relative happiness.
 

This is a test post, based on the results of the poll I posted a few weeks back.  The win was borderline, so if I don't get a reasonably large response, I won't continue to post about my conventional reading.
The Black Jewels Trilogy, by Anne Bishop is one of my favorite book series of all time.  It is a dark, sensual fantasy based in a unique universe, where a race of magic aristocrats called the Blood rule three worlds, Tereille, Kaeleer, and Hell.  The main characters of the story are a triangle surrounding one young girl whose very existence is their every hope and dream... for she is 'Dreams Made Flesh', Witch, the Queen of the Darkness.  Those main characters are: Daemon Sadi, a male pleasure slave that has been twisted by over seventeen hundred years of abuse at the hands of the women of Terreille, protecting himself from madness only by the prophecy given to him seven hundred years before, that Witch was coming;  Lucivar Yaslana, a slave and member of the winged Eyrien race, who has lived his entire life being called a half-breed bastard; Saetan SaDiablo, the High Lord of Hell, the High Priest of the Hourglass, who became a half-undead Guardian fifty thousand years before so that he would one day be given the opportunity to serve and protect the 'daughter of his soul'... and the father of Lucivar and Daemon; and last of all, the point around which the three revolve, Jaenalle, dreams made flesh, Witch, a kind-hearted young girl who wanders the Realms and is destined to one day rule from Ebon Askavi.
First, I should note that the Blood are matriarchal, forming circles of obligation centered around natural-born Queens (a cast based on a genetic quirk that isn't tied to magical power but rather the nature of the female), who in turn form circles of males who serve to form a court.  The highest rank of male are the Warlord Princes, primal individuals who possess sharp, murderous tempers and an intense need to protect.  Ideally, the Queens hold their leashes lightly, and the first rule of Blood Protocol is to 'protect', then 'serve', and third to 'obey'. 
Unfortunately, due to the influence of two ambitious Priestesses from the long-lived Hayllian race, the Blood in Terreille have become twisted and corrupt, the good Queens vanishing over the course of generations, leaving only twisted monstrosities of the human spirit in their place, women who know only how to use and enslave men... resulting in the men in their districts becoming ever more twisted themselves, as their experiences warp their reactions to their instincts, breaking them a little more with each generation. 
It is into this Terreille that Jaenalle is born and Daemon and Lucivar have lived.  Saetan, bound by his personal honor, has not been able to protect his sons, and when the daughter of his soul, already wounded by the corruption in Terreille first appears before him, it is only his long experience and iron will that keep him from crossing the final line he has held to for over fifty thousand years.
This series is a story of the trials and travails of the circle of relations that orbit the four points of the triangle, as the outer points try to protect the center, Jaenalle, so that the dream might one day become a salvation to them all. 
Honestly, Anne Bishop's brilliance lies in her ability to intimately portray the emotional travails of the characters, the subtle and not so subtle dance of Protocol and power, and the unique nature of the Blood make this one of the single richest experiences out there for dark fantasy.  In a culture where murder is legal but rape is punishable by death, but where the rules are breaking down, the central characters are a bastion of sanity in a world rapidly heading toward horror and despair beyond imagining. 
As Anne Bishop says in the forward in the omnibus edition, 'I started this world with Daemon, Jaenalle, and Lucivar, but it was Saetan who brought it to life.' She started out imagining a world where Darkness was, from the beginning to end, the dominant force, and in that darkness were both a vicious edge of violence, a terrible gentleness, and a primal, deep sort of love.
The characters in this series are passionate, with deep wells of potential violence and compassion both.  Saetan, Lucivar, Daemon, and Jaenalle are all individuals possessing a near-infinite capacity for both love and violence... and above all, they strive to protect.

First, I should mention that this review is split into two parts.  One covers the free prequel VN released back in May and the second covers the main game, which was released last week.  My personal advice is that you play the prequel first.  Both games are written in a really odd fashion (multiple narrators with the prequel and third-person with no insight into the protagonist for the main game). 
Prequel
The prequel covers the events eight years before the main game, filling you in on how Juri and Masashi (portrayed as the child, Koma) met as children and how Juri ended up on the path that led her to head up the Yoshioka Corporation.  To be blunt... this game is kind of frustrating.  The story is actually pretty fascinating, beginning as it does with a guy being asked to have sex with his best friend's beautiful wife (said guy being Koma's father, a vicious yakuza with an excessive fondness for fighting and drinking).  The story is told with varying characters being interviewed by a reporter serving as narrators, and they are, quite naturally, non-omniscient, knowing only their own viewpoints on what happened.  The biggest similarity in style between this and the main game is that you are never treated to the protagonist's stream of consciousness in either.  Both protagonists are the silent type, only rarely speaking their minds. 
There is some violence in this one, and it deliberately skirts around the edges of the yakuza activities involved.  However, this, quite oddly, did not detract from the experience for m.  I can say quite honestly that the main game would be a lot less comprehensible if I hadn't read this.
Main game
Omokage Railback's main game is set eight years after the incident portrayed in the prequel, and Koma (Shimizu Masashi Jr) has become Yoshioka Masashi, having been adopted into Juri's family and made CEO of the company (though because of the unique structure of the conglomerate, the real power lies in the hands of some really warped older people and Juri).  His first job as CEO is to make a deal for development of the resources of Yagurana Village, a small town that once faced off against the exploitative tactics of the Yoshioka corporation and won.  
I'm going to be blunt... the storytelling style of the main game is uncharacteristic for the VN medium in that it gives you almost no insight into the protagonist's inner workings or feelings.  The fact that I still found the game enjoyable is a measure of the writer's skill, but it was kind of weird playing a VN where the viewpoint kept switching between heroines and side characters rather than primarily revolving around the protagonist's point of view. 
This game is kind of short... and, in my mind, this harmed the game's quality somewhat.  This game could have used a far more extensive stretch of slice-of-life character development, but, instead the game hurries things along in a way that felt a bit hasty. 
Surprisingly, this game tackles some concepts that otaku media tends to avoid, such as transgender (non-comedic) and homosexuality (non-idealized), though obliquely through the acceptance of the said characters for who they are.  I did rofl repeatedly at the fact that the two hulking African-American bodyguards Juri has along with her were in love with Masashi.  The fact that you never get to know whether Masashi is actually aware of the fact that they've been stalking him (on Juri's orders) since he was taken in by the Yoshioka family was one of the many mysteries of the rather warped human relationships in this VN.  More serious is Asuka, the transgender maid who appears midway through the story.  Apparently, Masashi's reaction (or lacking of it) when finding out she was transgender was one of the major factors that led to her infatuation with him.  I don't call her a trap because she doesn't really fall into that 'moe-moe' characterization.
Getting back to warped relationships... there are very few relationships in this VN that aren't warped.  Juri is obsessed with Masashi to the point of psychosis, Lemon gets high on housecleaning (not housecleaning products, but the actual act of cleaning the house), Juri's mother... well, let's avoid spoiling that one.   Even the seemingly innocent Iroha has Aya (another heroine) as her 'poison taster' (who is also required by Yagurana custom to 'test' a prospective lover first). 
Overall, it is impossible to fit this VN into a single genre.  It also breaks Japanese VN conventions in about every way possible without abandoning the otaku style entirely.  That said, I enjoyed this VN, despite the isseus I also had with it. 

Visual Novel Translation Status (07/22/2017)
As for the title, because this week we had surprise announcement for an unknown VN Kickstarter (Sakura Sakura, or Sakusakura) and an unknown VN that had female assassin as MC was rereleased at Steam, I decided to just make the title as the combination of those two title 'Sakura Assassin'. And no, this is not Winged Cloud plan for their next Sakura VN here lol just in case some user here really interested with Sakura franchise, and I'm sorry in regard of that. Welcome to this week VNTS Review, which to tell the truth still just usual one which is filled with the updates only (And unknown VN releases). Although of course the updates were just as important as either announcements or releases, so I decided to reporting it here. For this week, we had Mangagamer joined fan translation with the usual updates. As for Sekai, too bad that Sekai decided to didn't use their tracker anymore just as I thought (Their new policy) and instead they would be just use 'video format' for their tracker, which sounds very vague since we didn't knew of how that's supposed to be there (I knew that Tay said something like semi regular video, but I wouldn't be sure here until they do that).
Other
As for Song of Memories, I think it's quite interesting that we had both of console (PS4) and PC releases. The premise was looks interesting, but I think for now I wouldn't interested with that for now although the production value for the number of songs were certainly very good there, because after all it's called 'Songs of Memories' not for nothing. There's also the matter that the VN itself looks like was some sort of an attempt to promote unknown idol group, which in this case that idol group would be Dream4You, and here's their website if you interested although it was explained that it was from the game inside the VN though. I'll just wait and see in regard of the release for now.
Other than Song of Memories, there's Sakusakura Kickstarter which would be launched at August 1st. The VN itself was quite unknown and definitely wasn't part of Winged Cloud Sakura's franchise, although I'd heard some good point for Sakusakura though. As for the premise, apparently it'll involved love triangle in the high school. The company behing the localization was quite suspicious, because their website weren't didn't reveal much information from Sakusakura itself and therefore it might be questionable. While I did think that their Kickstarter was in danger, I think it's better to save my comment in regard of that until the launch later (If the launch later wouldn't be delayed that is).
There's also Pure Pure in which we had a new translation project established. As for a little history, actually this VN did had translation project in the past but apparently the old project was getting stalled, and therefore considered dead. Therefore, the leader of the new group (Abyss Translation) was decided to tackle this and right now it was at around 18% (Chapter two was a quarter translated). Not quite interested with Pure Pure to be honest, but good luck to the project here nevertheless and I'll try to keep my eyes on that. By the way I knew that this is supposed to be fan translation section project, but since the translation group was already involved with official Tayutama 2 translation and they also attempted to contact Pure Pure developer, I decided to include it here for time now (I'll add this to fan translation section if they had more updates).
Fan Translation
As for fan translation, it's usual updates for this week as well so there's not much to talk about here in regard of the progress. Although there's a good news though from Bishoujo Mangekyou, namely Arcadeotic want two beta tester to test his first Bishoujo Mangekyou which mean that it should be ready for the release after the testing (Actually he was already prepared the beta patch). As for Majokoi, unfortunately there's no visible progress for this week but Fred assured us that there's still some work behind that, and he would work together with Hijiri's route translator to see of how it's should be going for the progress. This week we also had the progress from Clovers Day, in which right now Anzu's route was at around 87% translated. For Loverable, right now it was reaching 80% mark translated with the exact number was at 80.89% translated (Nanako's route was at 60.72% translated), 47.75% TLC-ed, and 20.79% edited. For the rest of the progress we had Sansha Mendan was at 94.3% translated, Venus Blood Chimera was at 48% translated, and Eustia was at 18.03% translated.
For more news from fan translation section, actually there's one project announced. The project's goal was to translated a VN (Duh) which named 'Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana', which from now on I'll just call it Karehana. As for Karehana, from the first look it's just like usual moege although from the review that I'd read apparently there's something more that make this VN was quite good. As for my personal opinion, I would like to see of how much the translator could translate it so I'll try keep my eyes on this project. Oh, and we already had the progress in which right now it was at 10.43% (1,926 out of 18,461 lines) translated and 4.99% (923 out of 18,461 lines) edited.
Almost forgot that we also had the update from Ate the Moon in regard of Tsukiyori, in which right now it was at 7.2% translated and 3.8% edited. As for the updates, the translator herself said that she decided to do weekly progress just like Tsujidou, so I decided to keep my eyes weekly on Tsukiyori. There's also Tsurezure in which they almost reached 30% translated mark for Tsujidou overall translation (29.43% translated), and for Ai's route itself right now it was at 33.44% translated.
Mangagamer
As for Mangagamer, even though this week image header was from Boukaku actually it's still wasn't released yet becaus it's just out from beta testing. Although judging from last experience in regard of beta testing, perhaps we could expect that in near future Mangagamer would be released Boukaku ie one or two months later. Since Boukaku was finished the testing, it mean that right now it's only Suki Suki that was still in the testing although hopefully it won't be that long before it was finally finished the testing. Speaking about the testing, right now Naked Butler was starting the testing and Mangagamer was concerned whether the testers would knew about Naked Butler beforehand or not.
Aside from beta testing, of course Mangagamer still offer some updates here. The updates for this time were goes like Hapymaher was at 87% translated, Sorcery Joker was at 87% edited, Maggot Bait was at 45% translated, Marriage was at three quarter translated and 72% edited, Imopara 2 was fully edited, Evenicle was at 96% translated (Almost completed), Hashihime was at 84% translated, and Trinoline was at 28% translated.
That's all for this week VNTS, and see you next week. 

Visual Novel Translation Status (07/15/2017)
The reason for the title was because we had image header from Subahibi, and we had Subahibi giving the Germany title as well (Usual Frontwing, like French at Grisaia), and since we had Alice allusion at Subahibi I thought that if I used Germany title of 'Alice in Wonderland' it would be fitting (I apologize if any Germany people get upset here), only that instead of Alice I'll using 'Hasaki' because the girl in image header was Hasaki from Subahibi. Welcome to this week VNTS Review, in which this week there's no much update from official company although I suppose that's given after many announcements from last week AX. Let's see what updates that we had for this week, even if the updates was not a lot and therefore this week post would be short.
Looks like I couldn't access Sekai project progress somehow right now, so it mean that there's no visible updates from Sekai unfortunately. Although to tell the truth it didn't matter though seeing that most of the visible project was already fully translated. Hope I could access the progress in the future, although if that's Sekai new policy then so be it. Lack of visible translation progress aside, actually there's one in which it was from Tokeijikake trilogy 2nd VN (Daybreak) and right now it was at three quarter translated. Sekai also said that right now they performing QA for the first VN, because apparently it was still need some debugging in order to reduce crash when not play on Japanese locale. Oh, and apparently it'll be available soon for the KS backer although it would still had some bug though. There's also Serment RPG VN hybrid thing that had Steam store opened, although I wasn't quite interested with that for now.
This week Frontwing decided to do some Kickstarter for Subahibi in order to produce the hard copy. For the first glance the goal was higher than usual hardcopy only Kickstarter (At $80,000), but actually it make sense though with apparently there'll be many merchandise and there's also stretch goal of $180,000 which apparently there will be some side story that would be wrote by the author (SCA-JI) himself. Not interested with the tiers to be blunt (I'd never interested with those at any Kickstarters in the first place), but good luck to Fronwing in regard of their Kickstarter and I'll report the gathered fund weekly. Oh, I checked their Tumblr in regard of 18+ patch and found out that the Steam version didn't censor yuri scene much, so maybe Steam was more acceptable with explicit content compared to few years ago imo. For newly released VN (Sorcerer's Dream), there's a talk that the VN was had many translation error although the title wasn't interesting to me though, so I'll pass this one (Congratulation for the release though).
There's many usual updates from fan translation segment, so let's try to roundup the progress here. For this week we had Clover Days Anzu's route was at around 81% translated; Majokoi was both at 90% translated and edited (70.36% TLC-ed); Loverable was at 79.55% translated (Nanako's route was past halfway (52.06%) translated), 20.75% edited, and 46.65% TLC-ed; Sansha Mendan was reaching past 90% mark (92.5%) translated; Venus Blood Chimera was at 46% translated; and Eustia was at 17.73% translated and 10.97% TLC-ed. For Ataraxia voice inserting, right now it was finished although they said that it'll take a while before the release. Pabloc was also had some update with his Konosora restoration project, namely that he'll had the common route QC-ed as well because the translation was still bad and therefore it'll take a while before the release (Hopefully this year).
We also had Ate the Moon Translation came back, and this time the team was decided to take on Tsuki Yori Yoritsou Otome no Sahou or as I called Tsukiyori which also known as trap VN from Navel (They already planned the translation for a while). Speaking about Tsukiyori actually it's already had the translation project in the past with another team, but it was dropped because the previous translator was too busy. For now I would like to keep my eyes on the project, and good luck to the team in regard of translating Tsukiyori. They already had the progress, and right now it was at 4.9% translated and 2.5% edited. Keep in mind that the updates might take month, because the translator herself tell us that she was quite busy. And since we had Alice for this week title, might as well said that right now Alice no Kuni otome VN progress was reaching 90% (All of it) and right now they want more translator (Not interested with Alice no Kuni, but good luck nevertheless).
I think that's all for this week, and see you next week.
PS - There's an update from Tsurezure in regard of Tsujidou (Duh), and this time they managed to reached a quarter (25.93%) translated mark for overall translation with Ai's route was at 21.87% translated. No much I could say in regard of that for this week, and that's all for now.

Visual Novel Translation Status (07/08/2017)
I'll be combined both of this week VNTS Review and my opinion in regard of AX into this blogpost here, and let me say welcome to this week VNTS Review (I'll tell the the title at PS later if some of you were somehow curious). As for this week, first of all there's quite a lot of announcement from AX and the genre was quite widespread from my observation (Including otome and BL VNs), and there's also the matter that many of those announced title were in development. Overall, for this time I think I was quite content with AX as of now (Even with some redundant announcements) and let's see what I could write here in regard both of this week and AX.
JAST USA
JAST, well once again good thing that I didn't expect much from them in regard of AX lol, although I still give some credit for them though for announced the estimated timeline for their in translation title if those weren't delayed later. As for the updates, JAST promised us that they'll release Eiyuu Senki this summer, Katahane remake at early 2018, Princess X at this fall, and Flowers Summer arc at winter (Quite ironic I knew, but at least it'll be appropriate at Australia later because it'll be summer there lol. About 60% translated according to Meru right now). What I knew for now is that all of the release date were vague, but at least we could always treat those as the estimated time when JAST would release those (Maybe there'll be sudden release for those VNs later). Anyway, out of those four I think I just keep my eyes on Flowers for now.
For the announcement, well at least it's only one redundant announcement instead of two if I may say something about JAST there lol (Keep in mind that was my opinion). Note that it wasn't improvement in regard of announcement number from the last year though, because JAST was only announced two titles compared to three titles at last year. The redundant announcement by JAST in question was Majikoi, in which it was already translated since back at 2015 by the team from here and this is the translation thread. Although I may said it redundant, Majikoi was definitely one of big VN that many people wanted to be fully translated in the past (So much that the thread was exploded to around 37 pages then shortened to 2 pages, because too many people posted encouragement word there).
For a history trivia, Majikoi was one VN that had many translation history started with when Takajun translated 4 out of 5 main routes, then he translated the 85% of the 5th main route and he disappeared after saying that he must work around 12 to 13 hours (He still had work or not I didn't knew). Then it was picked by the team at Fuwanovel here, and finally once again we had 2015 release comprised of both of Takajun and new team translation. Almost forget that Peter Payne himself tried to pick this back at VNDB (2014), and back then I was afraid that it mean it'll be taken by JAST (JAST was already infamous for slow release even back then iirc). Well, in the end it it didn't really change the fact that Majikoi announcement was redundant to me here though, although if they announced it back at 2014 maybe it'll be different there. Good luck to the new team (Maji Translation) there if they really retranslated Takajun translation, and hopefully the translation could satisfy the fan that want Majikoi to be officialy localized.
Another announcement from JAST was Machine Child. No much info to me here other than the illustrator was Oyari Ashito (Romanesque, Quartett), the gameplay was like Princess Maker, and it was still in development (Apparently Oyari want to make this game from long time ago according to one source iirc). Not my interest to said it lightly there.
Fan Translation
Well obviously there wasn't any announcement from this section back at AX, although since Sekai was used to be fan translator maybe I should add those announcement from Sekai here. Joking aside, this week they still had some usual updates here so let's see what's updates that we had for this week. The updates goes like we had Sansha Mendan was at almost 90% translated (89.4% translated); Eustia was at 17.63% translated (11.19% edited and 10.28% TLC-ed); Koiken Otome fandisc did had Shiho's route was at 45% translated (By the way, the new name for the translator group was 'Dergonu-sama and his kawaii crew' which is quite interesting name lol); Loverable was at 78.01% translated (Nanako's route was at 42.19% translated), 20.73% edited, and 45.31% TLC -ed; and Majokoi was at 89.7% translated, 63.6% TLC-ed, and 88.2% edited (Fred also said that the translator for Hijiri's route was started to work so that's should be the good news for Majokoi, although he also warned that if all progress was at 100% didn't mean that it was over).
For the rest, right now Tsui Yuri was facing a difficult technical problem so there wouldn't be any progress from them now, and hopefully they would be able to overcame it. As for Amagami, I think it was quite nice dedication there that they kept translating it after several years, and the VN itself was apparently quite good. Although too bad that it was for console though so I wouldn't be interested to that (My laptop couldn't handle PS2 emulator if I may say my honest reason). Oh, and by the way in regard of inserting voice for Ataraxia, I admit that they were quite fast and right now they estimated that by September it would be ready for release. As for Tsujidou, right now Ai's route was at 11.18% translated and overall translation was at 22.69% translated. Not much that I could comment in regard of Tsujidou progress for this week unfortunately, but at least it's stable enough for now.
That's all for fan translation.
Other
Considering that only Frontwing that had interesting announcements (ie updates), maybe I better call this section 'Frontwing' lol. Back to topic, I'd pretty much didn't interested with Akysys announcements there (All of those were otome, and for Vita to boot) but if you either otome or BL fan then those announcements would be good for you. Also if some people here look forward to seeing translated Chaos Child, be happy because the estimated release time was already announced (At September later).
For Frontwing, I would said that Subahibi wasn't new announcement because it was already known back at February. Subahibi aside, let's see what Frontwing had for this AX. This time Frontwing announced Momoiro Closet and two secret projects, which would be revealed later. As for Momoiro Closet, didn't had much info for now other than apparently it'll had female MC which was a student council president, a daughter of good politician, and an otaku; MC will met with a man who also an otaku as well; and it was still in development. Not quite interested with Momoiro for now, but I think both of Frontwing secret projets could be Hatsumira (Written by Fujisaki Ryuta by the way) and Yuki Koi Melt (Yukikoi) if only those two did had planned English release, and both of Hatsumira and Island had a man who was standed at the unknown land - also there's a hint of the secret projects was suggest the similarities between Island and one of secret projects. Keep in mind that it was just my speculation at the secret projects, and therefore it might be wrong (It was too obvious anyway).
As for Subahibi, it was good that they finally release it at end August later. It did had small controversy though, namely that the bestiality scenes was censored because it was too brutal to be shown to the reader. I think what I could say is that I prefer them to censor yaoi sex scene to be honest instead of bestiality, but it's not like those two scenes were had bigger part in the overall story anyway. But since they already decided that, I guess not much we could do here and I would like to see whether there would be the patch to uncensored bestiality or not. Quite interesting release that we must buy the first chapter for $30, then we got the rest of the VN as 18+ patch which mean that Frontwing didn't managed to find another easy way to fit it on Steam without removing the sex scenes in the first place - understandable though because it could be hard to felt disturbed if one removed the sex scenes, and yaoi and bestiality aside some of sex scenes could be disturbing to said it lightly.
As for Herkz comments in regard of Subahibi translation, to put it bluntly he was the one that people called him infamous troll along with Moogy iirc so I think it didn't matter whatever opinion that he had in regard of Subahibi release - also looks like he had some personal grudge from back when Frontwing release Chiru Chiru without his permission. Also if I may be blunt, once again his twitter just looks like he had some tantrum like Aroduc back at September last year. I admit that perhaps Herkz had some point behind his tantrum, but regardless I'd pretty much okay with whatever translation that Subahibi had.
Oh, by the way Island release was delayed to 2018 in order to coordinate it with anime adaptation. Maybe I should check anime season list for next year. And even if this wasn't in AX, MoeNovel did said that they had new project, although looking at their previous titles (Except Konosora, but that's another case) I wouldn't said that I interested with the new title very much.
Sekai Project
I give them point for not make me shocked like last year in regard of their announcements lol. Back to topic, this year once again they had many announcements although most of the projects were still in development though. Oh, and they also had Denpa announced that they would had 18+ version for Sekai announcement so at least from now on we didn't need to worry anymore in regard of 18+ version of Sekai announcement (Probably). Before going to the announcements, let's see what update that they had first. For the update other than usual Bokuko slight update, Sekai announced that they would release Saku Saku at fall and Baldr Sky duology in one package at early next year (2018). Oh, and if some of you look forward to play Wagahigh, look forward to 25th because Sekai will release Wagahigh at that date. I would still wary of delay for those three though, but for now let's just wait and see.
As for the announcements summary for in development VNs, didn't think that Island Diary would be interesting, and so does with Eternal. As for Novectale, interesting that they chose to had partnership with Sekai and this time they had new VN (Nakarma) in development. They don't have the detail yet, but apparently they would had underground setting which had some humanoid creature, and it also would had tabletop RPG gameplay so I think it'll be quite interesting. Forgot to say that at least Novectale didn't dependent on Fata Morgana as I worried about beforehand. For the Ninja Girl (The full title was mouthful lol) the girls were kinda cute, but my focus is to the writer himself which also wrote Harumade Kururu which is quite interesting - by the way, I already knew that Harumade wasn't a nukige in the first place and quite interested with that. Too bad that it wasn't announced by Denpa here. I think for now I would like to just wait and see here in regard both of Nakarma and Ninja Girl.
No comment for Rewrite+ here, although apparently it got new scenes and improved writing though, so it might be good if one want more Rewrite (To me just another redundant announcement here). Apparently it was got the new translator which he would translating it from the scratch instead of using Ixrec translation, although either way my opinion was still didn't care much though. Quite interesting though that Visual Arts finally working together with Sekai.
As for Nanairo Reincarnation, the premise was like a university student was living together with many youkai at his home, because his family was also had task to calmed a wondering spirits. I did heard some good thing in regard of Nanairo, so I'm gonna look forward to this one. Same goes with Senren Banka as well, if only because of the graphic and interesting opening song. Forgot to said that while the premise was quite epic looking - MC was the chosen one who could take the sword from the rock, and the sword turned out to be a little girl, I think I'm just gonna expect this as charage/moege one instead of story VN because I saw many review that was disappointed because they expect an epic story, and turned out it was just normal charage in the end of heroines route. Forgot to said that both of those announcements would be had 18+ content, and so does Tenshin Ranman which Denpa announced as well.
Congratulations to the Decay and his team in regard of Dracu Riot official announcement. As for my opinion, since we already had leaked patch here I didn't shocked like last year when Saku Saku was announced. For a little history lesson, Dracu Riot was translated by Insem first before he stopped giving some progress and after 31 months Insem finally give ~90% translated patch. Of course, just like Majikoi there's a team that willing to continue translated the rest of Miu's route (Decay was one of the member), and then Decay found out that the problem with the translation was quite severe. Of course he planned to doing some editing start from the beginning after Miu's route was fully translated, but back at September last year the patch was leaked and Decay was upset. Long story short, the patch was taken down and Sekai was announced Dracu Riot. Quite interesting that even with leaked patch, there're still some people that was complained about official release although it wasn't as severe as back when Saku Saku announced though. Well, in the end I would said good luck to Decay there and also it's up to Decay if he want to going official or not. By the way, Dracu Riot will also got 18+ version.
Forgot to said that I didn't care for Denpasoft new VNs here by the way, because those two VNs were only short nukige. Also turn out that Harumade Kururu illustrator came to Denpa panel in order to announced his new project (Island Diary).
Mangagamer
Once again Mangagamer did won by had the  most interesting announcement to me here (They only announced 3 new title and 2 in production title). But before going to the announcement, let's see what update they had for this week.
As for the updates, Hapymaher was at 85% translated and 78% edited, Maggot Bait was at 42% translated, Hashihime was at 76% translated, Boukaku was almost finished the testing, and Naked Butler was about to do the testing. For secret projects, the 2nd was at 91% translated and the 3rd was at 71% translated and 68% edited. Didn't care for Umineko hardcopy announcement, but if you look forward for Evangile W wait until 28th because Mangagamer will be released it at 28th later. That's all for the update.
For the AX announcements, let's start with Space Life which showed us of how money grubbing Circus were. Okay Circus was already like that in the past with Da Capo, but one thing to note that even back at Da Capo they still had some flat chested heroine (This trait was extended to Dal Segno), while in here all of the heroines were had big chest. Well I knew that I sounded like a pervert here, but one thing is that MoeNovel did had same strategy in regard of the heroines bust size (Quite big) so I would said that Circus was following MoeNovel footstep (It's their business strategy though I think). Anyway, as for the premise it's quite....... interesting I guess with big breasted sexualized internet browser thing (I bet that Internet Explorer woman was the slowest out there lol). Let's just wait and see about this for now in regard of the release, and by the way it's already completed both of translation and editing progress.
For Itaru Hinoue new project, I think it might be not good if we just looking at the writer, because the writer himself apparently was still new. I think in regard of VN, the writer should be the one that had the most influence with the story or if not then it's director job to do that. I still don't knew of how good Itaru project would be turned out, considering that her position should be only an illustrator. Then again, maybe the writer would show his potential later though although to be safe I won't expect much with Hinoue VN, even with apparently an interesting premise (It's a nakige apparently).
Back at March iirc, Mangagamer did had some hints which directed towards marriage. The hints was 'something four' which was associated with the marriage (Don't mind if wiki call it something old). Well, turned out that three of four secret projects that was revealed at AX did had marriage theme to some extend. The most obvious one was Moonstone's Magical Marriage Lunatic aka the 3rd secret project, in which we had our MC who was quite a playboy because he was make a childhood promise to five girls from each different dimensions (MC was stranded out to different dimension). Then each girls were coming to MC's dimension vowing to marry him, and even worse his childhood friend (Obviously a girl) declared rivalry against the marriage vows. By the way, the girls from different dimension were goddess, vampire, tenko, witch, and succubuss. I must admit that Marriage get good graphic like Evangile and the opening song was very interesting remix of wedding march, but unfortunately I'd heard that it wasn't quite good compared to two other Mangagamer announcement, so I'll pass this for now.
For less obvious one in regard of marriage, there's Damekoi aka the 4th secret project in which it was quite good and widely accepted. Also quite hard to translate because the writer was also would write White Album 2, which according to Moogy quite hard to translate. Of course since it was hard to translate, we had our Garejei and Conjueror duo to handle the translation and right now it was already completed at both of translating and editing. Anyway, the premise was like there was an apparently useless man (At 28 by the way) was get fired and get divorced as well (A dark aspect of marriage), and starting to pull himself together while living with a girl who still at 16 yet already more mature and responsible, if only because her mother left her. From now on the pair would likely face some challenge to overcame their trouble. I look forward to this VN if you ask my opinion.
The last announcement here was Evenicle aka the 2nd secret project. It's pretty obvious that Arunaru would handle this one (Because this is Alice Soft RPG), and I think he would be finished this year considering that it was at 91% translated already (The editing need to be catch up though). As for the VN, it had polygamy which is a situation where a man could had more than one wives. The premise was we had our MC want to be knight so he could marry more than one girl, and the MC himself was quite pervert (Nicer than Rance though, although he was quite a playboy). Didn't care about Senran Kagura thing to be honest, but I already tried this and it was quite addictive (I mean Evenicle). Forgot to said that also there's a hint that directed toward Evenicle here actually, but I thought that it would be Drapekoi lol. Looking forward to Evenicle in English here.
That's all for overall my AX commentary and this week VNTS Review. See you next week.
PS - For the title since we had vampire at Dracu Riot I decided to parodying Twilight once again, and combining it with Reincarnation from 'Nanairo Reincarnation' so we got 'Twilight Reincarnation' here (Quite simple I knew).

Allow me to write down a short complaint.
Why is it that, so often in manga, I find myself unable to even understand what is drawn? Never mind ugly drawings, when the reader can't understand what's represented on the panel, something is seriously wrong.
I can forgive H-Scenes for this. Shot angles in those are traditionally bonkers and I've given up understanding what kind of anatomy those characters have, as its certainly not human (how'd you even get your leg over there?).
Now, when I'm trying to follow my action story, or even just a simple romance, and I can't tell what's happening, something is seriously off. Most recently, I'm accusing Sankarea of this, but it's definitely not the only one, or a particularly bad offender. Were I to try and find a pattern, I'd say that older works tend to be harder to follow, but it's definitely no hard rule.
There's nothing like a good camera shot that seems to be focusing on... a wall??? Or is that the ground? A step in a staircase? A corner? A windowsill??
 
This leads right into the next issue, and that's crappy speech balloons. In Japanese, it's rather possible that characters speak very distinctly from each other, and that makes it so its not often necessary to clearly indicate who's saying what. However, in English it's not only harder to differentiate what's being said/speech patterns, the translations themselves are not good enough to do it (incidentally, anecdotally I've found that Yuri works have the best translations).
Bad translations are by themselves a big problem, and they are likely to be even worse a problem than not being translated at all. Wedding 2 (the sequel) is likely the worst translation I have ever read in my life, making the whole sequel unintelligible -- you basically had to to go by the drawings. A translation existing severely decreases the chances that someone will pick it up again, but it's still possible. Case in point, I have reason to believe that more than one translation of this sequel exist, and that's something I'll have to investigate.
Going back to the balloons, the first thing they should do is ban balloons without a 'tail'. Those (ironically) devilish things, when coupled with the ridiculous, stupid habit of focusing the camera on a character that is not currently speaking, make for some needlessly painful reading experiences. Then there's the conversations between characters, which are so tight and packed in like sardines, sometimes the tail is actually pointing to the wrong character. Or maybe, since the bubble are on top of one another, the author erases the borders, making for a multi-level bubble with speech from more than one person and only one tail.
There are nice, generous authors that doodle the characters in the bubble to make it clear who's saying what, but I'm not sure whether to blame generic designs or lack of doodling skills, but those don't always help like they should.
 
But alas, I still love manga. I just wish more of them were within my sphere of comprehension. And easier to buy.

Visual Novel Translation Status (06/03/2017)
As for the title, since I did promised in regard of 'Day of Wrath' when Dies Irae release, of course I used that title as it show. Although I decided to add 'Inutilis Dea' here as well though, in which it was the latin for 'The Useless Goddess' (Another released VN here) because Dies Irae here also had some latin words for the subtitle here. Back to business here, welcome to my VNTS Review for this week and sorry for being late here. As for this week, the most obviously big release here was Dies Irae in which it was quite hyped there. Big release aside, this week progress was just usual fan translation mostly. Let's see what this week updates will offer here.
This week, there's no much update that we could expect from official localization such as Sekai and Mangagamer. Although by 'no much' I mean that they had some update here of course. As for the updates, since it's only a few here I'll just round up all of the updates here.
From Sekai there's Bell Chime for Gold (An otome VN apparently) which at 62% translated right now, and right now Konosora Kickstarter was gathered around 55,000 out of 75,000 for Eternal Heart localization. Other than those two, there's no update from them this week, so whatever. At one of their tweet, JAST said that right now they currently at halfway (Around 50% or so) translating Flowers, which should be Summer arc (Or Le Volume sur Ete for original title) if we look from JAST release plan. Which mean at this rate it looks like it'll be impossible if they talk about 2017 release plan, but then again it may change in the future though. Mangagamer announced that they release Dal Segno for both Steam and 18+ version at June 30th. Interestingly, Mangagamer said that they'll prepare free restoration patch for Steam version so obviously it'll allow any Steam player to play 18+ version as well (Steam version for Mangagamer VN was usually cheaper, so obviously many people would be probably buy Mangagamer VNs from Steam). By the way, apparently this is the first time Mangagamer tried something like this, so maybe there'll be more in the future (Steam VN using free 18+ patch) That's all for the roundup from official localization company here.
Fan Translation
This week, there's only some usual updates here so not much that I could write later. But apparently a project from this section was dropped, and it was Shibukuzu in which it was Dergonu's project. Let's just hope that someday it'll be picked up again, although apparently it was already getting another translator though. Also there's one more update from Konosora Restoration project in which there was one script left to be translated (Pabloc complained it was a sex scene though), and then all that was left is the editing (It's almost catch up with the current retranslation) and QC before finally making a patch. Good luck once again there to Konosora Restoration project.
For the rest of the updates we had Eustia was at finally reaching 15% mark translated (15.15%, and Fione's arc was at 20.33% translated), 9.24% edited (Common was at 96.70% edited), and 7.64% TLC-ed (Eris's arc was at 4.5% TLC-ed). For more updates from fan translation here, we had Majokoi was at 86.6% translated and 84.66% edited, Koiken Otome fandisc was had 1,403 lines of it translated (Shiho's route was at 29% translated), Witch Garden was at a quarter translated, and Loverable was at 71.56% translated (Also was at 42.63% TLC-ed and one fifth (20.08%) edited).
That's all for fan translation right now, and I'll add Tsujidou progress here later.
Other
For the first news here, finally Chuusotsu Kickstarter was success with the fund gathered was at 24,104. To tell the truth, I was kind of afraid that the Kickstarter was failed after seeing of how much effort that Fruitbat was put in order to bring Chuusotsu localized there, especially when it's still at around 18,000 or so with three days left back then. Well, in the end it was successful though but it's still not enough for the additional reward though (In which Fruitbat will try to raise it using Backerkit or something like that). Forgot to said this beforehand, but let me said congratulations for the successful Chuusotsu Kickstarter there to Fruitbat Factory.
Once again from this section we had big release for this month, in which it's not Useless Goddess obviously (Apparently it's just another fanservicy VN from MoeNovel there). It's obviously Dies Irae oce again, in which it was quite famous as one of very good chuunige. As for the VN itself, apparently the premise was back at the aftermath of WW2 in which what apparently happened is that some of Germany did some ritual for some reason and as the result the Germany were disappeared to Japan at 2006. From there, the Germany started to cause some havoc and it's up to the protagonist to counter it. While the story might sounds quite cliche there, there's another aspect that make it famous namely that apparently the writing was quite good there compared to other VNs, and also the infamy of it for being hard to translated (According to Moogy). This VN was also established Masada as very good chuunige writer and of course bring money to light (The company behind Dies Irae), so much that they started to churn out some chuunige that was written by Masada and some of his apprentice (I mean as Cash Cow Franchise thing, although it's understandable though). Well, have fun playing Dies Irae though although it's still didn't had 18+ content though (It'll be added later at July in form of patch).
That's all for this week VNTS Review, and see you next week.
PS - As promised, right now we had Tsujidou first common route was at 86.01% translated (11.22% translated overall) which meant that it's possible that it'll be fully translated by next week (I meant the first part of common route). That's all for Tsujidou update here, and by the way there's still no plan of releasing partial patch for now.

If I could give you any two pieces of advice, gentle reader, they would be: don’t eat unopened mussels, and don’t proofread anything you’ve edited. Neither will end well for you.

I always scratch my head when I see a visual novel translation project with the same person listed as Editor and Proofreader. Or worse yet, Translator, Editor, and Proofreader. Or (and I know I’ve seen this at least once) Translator, TLC, Editor, and Proofreader. I’m all for DIY, but that's a disaster waiting to happen.

Here’s the rule: If you’ve touched a piece of copy in any one of these roles, it’s tainted for you in all others. Sorry, that’s just how it is. These jobs are meant to be a series of checks and balances to help ensure the quality and accuracy of the content. If a single person takes on two or more of these roles, you’ve got problems. If one or more of these positions goes completely unfilled, you’ve got problems.

It’s not that you wouldn’t be capable — many editors are amazing at proofreading, and tons of translators are wonderful at TLC — but once you’ve worked with the text in one capacity, your familiarity with it makes you far less effective in any other role.

Our stupid, stupid brains
Like so many things in life, it all comes down our stupid brains being more helpful than we want — kind of like an overeager toddler who just handed you your iPhone. In the shower. (Thank god for Applecare+.) Whenever our brains see a gap in content, they try to fill it whether we want them to or not. “Hi, I’m your brain. Hey, is there a word missing there? Can I make a fairly good guess as to what it is? Wheee! I’ll just pretend like it was there and we read it and nothing’s wrong. Now let’s go think about boobies some more! BOO-BEES! BOO-BEES!” And the more familiar your brain is with the work in question, the easier it is for it to fill in those gaps. It already knows what to expect, and it’s just waiting to jump in and save the day.
Our brains must be stopped before they kill again.
The easiest way to do this is, at each step of the creation and revision process, have someone ready look at the content with fresh eyes and no preconceptions. Simple as that. You wouldn't go get a second opinion from the doctor who just provided your first opinion, would you? So don’t do it here. Don't double-up on jobs, and don’t leave positions unfilled. The final product will be better for it.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Easier said than done. Finding good volunteers is tough and people flake out or have RL commitments all the time. So what then?


 
The nuclear option
When I got my first job in advertising, I was an idiot. Thankfully, my first creative director was not. A highly accomplished copywriter, she’d penned dozens of the brand slogans that had littered my youth. Suffice to say, she knew her stuff. (You’d probably know her stuff too, if you saw it.) And this was one of the first things she taught me: “Never, ever proofread your own work. But if you have to ...”

That’s right, she had a trick. A big red button on the wall of her brain that said, “PUSH ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.” You never want to proof your own work, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you’ve rewritten the copy deck five minutes before the big pitch and there’s no time to send it back for proofreading. That’s where the trick comes in.

Read it backwards.
Start at the very last word and read your way back until you hit the first. This strips away all meaning from the text — your brain isn’t leaping in with a guess as to what comes next — so you can focus on minutiae like spelling, punctuation, repeated words, etc.

This is a relatively laborious process, unfortunately, and it doesn’t scale well to an entire visual novel. But I mention it here in case you find yourself with a few lines or even a short script that needs a proofing pass and you’re the only one around to do it.

.it of habit a make don’t Just.

Full disclosure
By the way, I’ll be the first one to admit that v1.0 of the KoiRizo English patch has typos. In my role as editor, I tried to work as cleanly as possible, but over the course of 36,000+ lines — I figure that’s gotta be at least 250,000 words — a few foxes got into the henhouse. The team didn’t have any proofreaders, and the QC process wasn’t nearly as robust as had initially been hoped. (Zakamutt touches on that here.) But you know what? For all of that, I think the launch product came out comparatively clean. I still want to drink bleach and die every time I see a typo report, of course, but that comes with the territory.

And with any luck, there will be patch updates forthcoming that address some of these lingering issues. Which is good, since I’m running low on bleach. And lives.

There is a secret language spoken in the darkest corners of the visual novel world, a cant so ancient and intricate that none know its origins. To be initiated in its ways, one must drink from the Dread Chalice and be reborn in fire. Only then will the caul be drawn from your eyes.
You shall know onomatopoeia. And you shall know fear.
Sploosh 101: What is onomatopoeia?
Before we jump in with both feet — *splash!* — let’s do a quick primer on terminology. An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates, resembles, or suggests the source of the sound it describes — i.e, it sounds like what it is. Like clink, yip, kaboom, swish, meow, oink. (That’s the verbatim transcript of my bachelor party, in case anyone’s wondering.) This is different from a word that describes a sound or action, but doesn’t actually imitate it — e.g., sneeze vs. achoo, punch vs. kapow, close vs. slam. The latter are onomatopoeia; the former, I call ononotopoeia.
For the sake of brevity, let’s refer to these O and not-O.
The Japanese language is rich in O. There’s a sound effect for everything. There’s probably a sound effect for there being a sound effect for everything. (If there isn’t, I’d like to propose one now: darubu.) There are even sound effects for things that don’t actually make sound — e.g., “jii” for staring. While it’s woven into the fabric of the modern Japanese language, O is especially prevalent in manga and, to a somewhat lesser extent, anime. Since visual novels draw heavily from these two worlds, they too feature lots and lots of these words.
English is relatively impoverished in O by comparison, and therein lies the challenge for VN translators and editors. Do you leave these essentially untranslatable sound effects as they are? Or do you try to translate them, losing some of their immediacy and, for lack of a better word, oomph?

Across the great divide
The VN community seems to be fairly split on that question. In one camp, we have the purists. By and large, these are readers who are already comfortable with Japanese O through manga and anime. They consider it part and parcel of the VN experience. Learning and appreciating such terms is simply part of becoming an accomplished reader. It’d be like going to a fine dining restaurant and, instead of the chef presenting you with “the amuse-bouche,” he just came out and said, “Here’s this small appetizer thingy I made. Hope you like it.” The vocabulary is part of the experience.
In the other camp, we have the reformists. To them, leaving O untouched isn’t translation; it’s mere transliteration. It denies meaningful content to the uninitiated English reader — e.g., if you don’t know "munyu" means to grope someone, you’ll be clueless when the best girl hauls off and smacks the protagonist in the very next line. To extend the fine dining metaphor, it’d be like going to the same restaurant, being handed a menu that was all in French, and having the waitstaff snootily refuse to tell you what anything meant. Hope you like thymus glands, mon ami, because that’s what you just ordered.
When it came to KoiRizo, I was a reformist editor on a purist project. I joined the team after the translation had been completed and a lot of the big up-front decisions had already been made: Will this be a literal translation or liberal? (Literal.) Will we keep all the honorifics? (Yes.) Will we keep all the onomatopoeia? (Yes.) MDZ, the KoiRizo project lead, was very up-front about all this. And that was fine. The job of a VN editor is to facilitate and execute on the project lead’s vision. It’s great if you’re involved early enough to shape that vision, but it’s ultimately his/her show, not yours. (If you’re not okay with that, go start your own TL project.) So with that in mind, I did the best purist editing job I could.
But what if I had carte blanche in how I approached O? What would I do differently? As luck would have it, I’ve given that some thought.

Onomatopoeia in standard scripts
For the majority of scripts, it helps to separate O-words into two groups: content-light ad content-heavy. The content-light group tends to consist of interjections, exclamations, grunts, groans, laughs, etc. These are mostly self-explanatory terms, communicating very little other than the fact that they’re a familiar sound. Some examples include:
Ho E A Heh Uuu At most, I’ll clean these up to make them friendlier to Western eyes — “A! A sea cucumber!” becomes “Ah! A sea cucumber!” (In this case, it’d be too easy to mistake the “A” sound for a stammering repetition of the indefinite article “a.”) Otherwise, I’m happy to leave them be.
On the other side, we have the content-heavy O-words. These are either (1) terms that have a very specific meaning you’d never be able to guess at without prior knowledge, or (2) common sounds that are rendered much differently in English than Japanese. These are the words that, if you ignore them, will result in meaningful content being lost in translation. Some examples include:
Kakkun = the “sound” of hitting someone in the back of the knees. Based on a kids’ game. Su = the sound of something suddenly appearing (among other meanings) Gusu = the sound of a whimpering sob Hakushon = the sound of sneezing Chikutaku = the sound a clock makes Our first line of attack is to see if there’s any suitable English onomatopoeia we can swap in. It’s rare that it works out so neatly, but it does happen. So "hakushon" becomes “achoo,” "chikutaku" becomes “tick tock,” etc. If this doesn’t work, we fall back on another common approach: turning not-O English words into O by enclosing them in asterisks. So:
“Gusu. Why won’t you return any of my calls?"
becomes:
*whimper* “Why won’t you return any of my calls?”
As your final line of defense, you might consider abandoning O altogether, instead relying on some explanatory text to flesh out the intended meaning. So:
Su.
“Where do you think you’re going, jerk?”
becomes:
She appeared out of nowhere.
“Where do you think you’re going, jerk?”
I’d recommend turning to this as a last resort, however, since you can see a certain staccato elegance gets lost in translation.
As for where you can find out what all these untranslated O-words mean, there are all sorts of online resources to be had out there. I tend to use the Japanese > English SFX dictionary over at The JADED Network, but I’m sure there are plenty of others just as good.

Onomatopoeia in H-scenes
Sex scenes are something of a special case. You’ll find there are large blocks of text that are nothing but wall-to-wall O. (I see what you did there, you sly dog you ...) Here are some sample lines from KoiRizo:
Sango: “Nafufu. Fumu, Juru, Zuzuzu."
Sango: "Rero, Chu, Chuu ..."
Sango: "Hamu, Chuu, Chuu ... Rero, Juupu, Zuzu."
Sango: "Jupo, Gupo, Zu."
Sango: "Juzuzuzuzu."
Sango: "Fumu? Fua ..."
During editing, I liked to call these sections “word salad.” They’re an unholy mishmash of content-heavy O, content-light O, and nonsensical fuck-grunts. It’s a tangled mess of syllables that can make even the bravest editor or translator turn tail and run. In my earlier post on editing H-scenes, one of the commenters — smile for the camera, Ittaku! — suggested it might just be better to replace these sections with ellipses and let the VO do all the heavy lifting. It’s a tempting thought. But despite all appearances, there’s content to be had there — content the Japanese reader would have understood, and which the English reader will miss out on ... unless you take action.
Let’s see what happens if we (somewhat liberally) run it through the techniques we’ve discussed so far.
Sango: "Ummph. Umm." *slurp* *sluuurp*
Sango: “Mmm.” *suuuck*
Sango: *nibble* *suck* “Mmmm ...” *bob* *sluuurp*
Sango: *sucksuck* *slurp*
Sango: *slurpslurpslurpsluuurp*
Sango: "Mmmph? Ahhh ..."
Okay, it ain’t poetry, but at least we’ve transformed our tossed salad it into something with actual meaning. Even without having read the rest of the scene, you can guess that Sango is vigorously polishing the protagonist’s knob. Or is trapped in a vat of ramen and eating her way to freedom. It can be improved upon, of course; all those asterisks start getting visually distracting, so if the VN engine supports it, italics might be a better choice here. But I’d argue it’s much better than what we started with.
Feeling more confident? Good. Go forth and sploosh.

Parallel structure is a really simple concept that you probably already know in the back of your mind, but that you probably could use a little formalism to better understand. The idea is simple: when you're building a sentence with a list of multiple entries (which may potentially be pretty much any part of the sentence), try to keep the syntactic structure of each entry the same. If you don't do this, in the best case, your sentence will be a little harder to follow, and in the worst case, it will be downright ungrammatical.
Ready for some examples? Here we go!
VN TL Example
I was mostly inspired to write this blog post by a translated script I was looking at a few months ago which had quite a lot of parallel structure problems. Here's a particularly clear example sentence demonstrating the issue, from the translated script:
Makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
The problem is that list of three items: "good grades"; "great looks"; and "is very popular among all the students." One of these things is not like the others. So, what do you do about it? You massage them until they're the same, of course. You could try to rewrite that last one to an "<adjective> <noun>" format like the others, e.g., "<some adjective> popularity", but I'm having trouble making that work. "High popularity?" Basically nonsense. Maybe chuck the word popular and find some equivalent? At any rate, I gave up on this branch because it was too much trouble already and there were better options: for starters, we could just switch to single adjectives down the line:
It's a little terse now, and it doesn't say exactly the same thing, but this sounds quite a lot better because of the improved parallelism. You could also go the other the direction and make them all verbal phrases:
Or even rewrite them each as a full-on independent clause:
I probably wouldn't go with any of these (I actually didn't edit this line; I just left a note for the person who'd already been through it to come back and fix up the parallel structure). To be honest, most of the words here are pretty bland; the character in question is being painted in dull shades of gray. I'd want to splash some color onto it. And, yes, it should really have a serial comma (you'll see I added it to all of my versions), because the serial comma actually is as great as it's hyped up to be.
That said, neither making things more interesting (while of course keeping in mind that the goal is to better match the intent and flavor of the original) nor waxing eloquent on the value of the serial comma is my concern with this blog post. At the moment, the goal is just to avoid wanting to put my fist through a wall, and if we fix all these parallel structure problems, I might just make it through the day with my hands and walls intact.
Published News Article (if by "published" you mean "posted to some site on the internet") Example
Here's a great, more interesting example. This one I just happened to stumble across mere minutes after I'd settled on writing this blog entry earlier today as I was, out of idle curiosity, poking around for more info about that zoo penguin with a Kemono Friends waifu:
My fist is twitching.
As with any writing problem, there are many ways to rewrite the sentence to fix the problem, but here's probably the least intrusive fix: insert a "to" after the "accustomed" and before the parenthetical. It's easy to convince yourself this is at least an improvement by dropping that whole additional verbal phrase inside the parentheses and reading the resulting sentence out loud to yourself, since the result is a straightforward, obviously grammatical sentence. As the sentence was originally written, if you drop the parenthetical, the result is equally obviously ungrammatical. So, here's the simple fix:
This is passable, in my opinion (assuming the audience for said news article is a bunch of weebs who will understand "waifus and husbandos"), but it's still a pretty extreme example of odd sentence structure, and if you so desire, you can go quite a bit further to fix this up for better readability, by either breaking up that list entirely or by further enhancing the parallelism. This example is particularly interesting, and the mistake here particularly understandable, because the structure of that compound verbal phrase is so complex. My initial analysis was that "to grow accustomed to" was a transitive phrasal verb, but I don't think that's quite correct, because "accustomed to XXXX" is probably best classified as an adjective, which is consistent with this usage of "to grow" being best classified as a linking verb, rather than a transitive verb. By that, I mean that "to grow a fruit tree", the transitive version of "to grow," is quite different from "to grow bored", the linking version of "to grow," of which this is an example. Meanwhile, "to celebrate" is a simple transitive verb. So in this sentence, they've actually managed to build a compound verb phrase out of: a linking verb, linking the subject to a phrasal adjective which takes an object (itself a pretty long, complex noun phrase); and the simple transitive verb "to celebrate," which is taking the same really long noun phrase for an object. Bottom line, it's still a pretty gnarly sentence because of the remaining lack of parallelism between the verb phrases.
Want to fix it more? Knock yourself out (but I think my walls are safe from me now, so please don't knock them out). Once you get parallel structure ingrained in your brain, it gets pretty easy to spot problems and to fix them. In fact, you might even start spotting correct usage of parallelism and appreciating it.

Visual Novel Translation Status (03/04/2017)
First of all, sorry for my very delayed VNTS Review here. As for the title, I'd quite confused at first but since we had English girl as image header and blonde at that, I decided to use Kiniro Clock which is derived from Kiniro Mosaic anime (Of course the word Clock was from Chrono Clock duh, and Kiniro mean golden ie blonde as the anime state). With that said, welcome to my belated VNTS Review here.
As for this week (Well more likely last, but whatever), while Sekai was released one VN I'd more like the updates from fan translation if I may said it honestly here. Other than both of Sekai and fan translation segments, this week there's no exciting announcent from Mangagamer here (Duh). But actually this week JAST was had a news in regard of their VN, namely that one of their nukige (Nympho Ryoko Sensei) was entering Golden Master which mean the release time was almost close. My respons here would be whatever. Let's see what this week updates offer here.
Today, apparently Frontwing will be launching Phantom Trigger Kickstarter at 6th (6 PM PST to be exact) later. As for mine, well to be honest not one that I'm interested with, but I'll try to keep my eyes on the Kickstarter and doing usual here (Report of how much fund is gathering). Also there's another VN was planned to be release in English version ie Steam, wich to tell the truth it was quite unusual. The unusual thing about the VN (Shibuya Scramble) is that it'll be using real life art for the character instead of using hand drawn sprite. Other than that, apparently this VN got 40 out of 40 scores at Famitsu which is said a lot about the game (Perhaps). I'll try to search the info about this upcoming VN later, although I remember that I'd read about this back at Gamefaqs Ever17 board though.
As like I said before, this week we had some interesting yet usual updates from fan translation section. But before I write the updates let me say that apparently Aokana project was stalled there once again, and apparently they tried to reorganized the team or something like that (Hope the best for them then). Speaking about stalled project, congratulations to Majokoi translation project because they finally managed to find new lead translator there, and hopefully the translation progress could be resumed once again. As for the progress, no progress for the translation (Understandable though) while there's some slight update from edit and TLC (67.2% and 15.1% respectively).
Other than those two, there's once again some interesting updates. For more detail there Loverable was at 55.29% translated, 22.79% TLC-ed, and 16.85% edited; To Heart 2 was at about 55% proofread more or less (Also Yuma route finished proofread process there); Sono Hanabira 11 was at 113 out of 120 scripts translated; and for last but not the least we had HatsuKoi progeress which is quite significant if I may said. For more detail, they once again translating Runa route right now and surprisingly they translated 31.75% of it, because according to the translator themselves it was the longest route at HatsuKoi and they even state that if they did Yukino first the overall progress would be past halfway (51%, compared to current overall progress which at 37.72% translated).
As for Sekai, while there's a release once again, their updates were quite lacking to be very blunt here. For the updates right now Maitetsu was almost finished with the translation at 99.69% and Bokukotsu was at 35.01% translated. Finally, once again Sekai was had released VN there and it was Chrono Clock. As for the release, I admit that at forst I sort of didn't trust that because there's no release date back at both of Nutaku and Steam, and it turned out that the release date was real indeed. Well, as for the VN itself it's sort of heartwarming and light tale about love there, and we had time travel element as well so if people expect deep story, better not play this imo (I already played this a little bit). Also for last note here, the planning staff was also responsible back at minori and Supipara as well (mikage) for a little trivia.
That's all for my once again belated VNTS Review, and see you next week (Or maube next Sunday to be exact).
PS - Speaking about Supipara, I think the time we'll get the Peace Story will be very long time because from what I saw minori was still not gathered 200,000 yet from the sales. Just want to write about that here.

One of the single biggest elements of most VNs in existence is slice-of-life.  This entire post is based on this fact, and it isn't one that can seriously be argued against by anyone who has read more than a hundred VNs.
So what is slice-of-life?  With VNs, it is a type of scene where bits and pieces of daily life, without any particular conflict, are portrayed.  These can be humorous, mildly touching, or informative. 
So what is the value of slice-of-life as a tool for storytelling?  For one thing, it provides an opportunity to portray and develop the characters in their most 'natural' setting.  Do you want to know what a character is like in peaceful times?  Slice-of-life scenes are generally the tool used.  Do you want to slowly develop a mild romance between two characters?  Then slice-of-life is your friend. 
In this sense, slice-of-life is a highly valuable tool.  While extreme scenes, such as violent scenes or ones with psychological or intellectual conflict, are also valuable for developing characters and their relationships, it is the slice-of-life scenes that form the skeleton to which the conflict and/or drama adds flesh later on. 
However, the problem with slice-of-life is that it is basically an exclusion of extremity.  It is difficult - virtually impossible - to give flesh to a character with only slice-of-life.  For better or worse, people bare their true strength and value (or weakness and uselessness) in situations where they are being tested by circumstance or opposition (whether intense or mild).  This applies to VN characters, as well. 
Slice-of-life is your friend... unless that's all there is.  Sadly, a lot of writers make the mistake of thinking otherwise.  I can't count how many VNs I've experienced that make this mistake, to one extent or another.  Slice-of-life as a tool is a valuable friend and ally... but as the sole tool for constructing a story, it falls pathetically short all too often.
Edit: Understand, I came to these conclusions as a result of playing numerous VNs that made that particular mistake... and I'm including 'standard Vn romance' as slice-of-life.  Romance is something I'll touch on separately in the next entry.

Suisei Ginka is the latest VN made by Akatsuki Works, the makers of such classic VNs as Ruitomo, Comyu, and Devils Devel Concept.  This was written by Morisaki Ryoto, the writer of multiple kamige including Hapymaher, Komorebi no Nostalgica (as an assistant writer), and Re:Birth Colony.  He is one of the most flexible and skilled writers out there, and I've yet to fail to enjoy a VN he's had a hand in.
This VN is based in a port city half-owned by a company that caused a disastrous chemical spill there ten years ago.  It begins with the reunion of Izana, a young woman with a rather unusual attitude toward life, and Tetsuo, a straightforward young man with an utter disregard for his own safety and survival.  Naturally, this being an Akatsuki Works game, this is the beginning of numerous troubles and tribulations.
Structurally, this VN is pretty 'to the point', in that the story uses the bare minimum of slice-of-life to give life to the characters and setting, while constantly keeping a laser focus on what is moving in the shadows... and the disastrous potential it holds. 

Maria
Looking at it in retrospect, I probably should have done this path second or third.  However, I followed my instincts on the game's first major story choice, and as a result I got into this path.  Maria's path is focused on the company that caused everything to go so horribly wrong, so it reveals details of some factors that spoil the other paths a little bit.
Maria herself is a classic 'expressionless loli' of the type that is common to a lot of chuunige that have loli heroines.  Normally expressionless and nearly emotionless, she is very much like a cat, acting sweet to those few people she cares about and disregarding just about everyone else based on their use or lack of to her.  Edit: That isn't to say she's completely devoid of emotion... but with the guy who acts as her guardian being the kind of guy he is... she's naturally a little warped.
This path has a lot of violence to it, primarily because of what the characters face in it.  It is a solid path though... it is just one that I really should have waited on.

Seika
Seika is Izana's best female friend and more than a little bit prickly toward anyone who approaches her with ulterior motives (and because of Izana's easy manner and physical beauty, that is pretty common).  She was raised by a strict asshole father who sees her only as a convenient object to augment his own ambitions for the family line, which is a lot of the reason why she is so prickly in general.  Her sole point of softness is Izana, whom she would probably do anything for. 
Seika's path is wrapped up in dealing with the plot element that drives most of the protagonist-side characters, in a very intimate manner.  It's a fairly standard path for a game like this, serving as a fitting intro to the ins and outs of the story while setting the stage for elaborations in future paths.  I liked how it turned out, though a lot of people might find it an odd ending.  It is more solid than say... Benio's path in Comyu, which was fundamentally unsatisfying (for some reason, Hino Wataru sometimes chooses to drop a single weak heroine path in some of his games). 

Momo
Momo is Tetsuo's guardian/oneesan/coworker.  She is a heavy-drinker and a heavy-smoker and she is actually thirty, though she looks twenty.  She is also a brilliant (genius-level) individual as well as being highly perceptive when it comes to people in general.  She and Tetsuo have lived most of the last ten years around one another, and they know each other about as well as it is possible to know another person without being them. 
After playing this path, I definitely realized there was a play order... Seika>Momo>Maria>Izana.  The reason is fairly simple... Maria's path reveals too much about the 'causes' of all this, removing a great deal of the mystery about what the protagonist is trying to do at the end of Momo's path and the 'why' of certain elements of Seika's path.  Seika's path, on the other hand, paves the way for things that are elaborated on in Momo's path.  Izana's path is, of course, the true one.
Momo's path focuses on one of the more obvious, if mid-boss type antagonists.  This antagonist is a 'rationally insane' type who has no morals whatsoever outside of their personal ruleset.  In addition, this path has more death than the other two paths combined, lol.  I will say I liked the ending of this one, as well.

Izana
 
Izana is the true heroine of this VN.  She is also one of those 'always involved with the protagonist's life' heroines in the style of Kagome from Comyu or Suzu from Ayakashibito (meaning that even if they aren't lovers, they never really separate).  Izana is a very odd young girl... she seems at first to be something of a tomboy, but when you get to know her, she also shows a kind of quiet wisdom that the average tomboy heroine just doesn't possess.  Rather than being intelligent, she really is just 'wise'.
Her relationship with Tetsuo is so strong that it is unchanged by the ten years of parting between them.  They both care deeply about one another and trust each other absolutely, without reservations. 
Her path, true to the form of true paths in chuunige, is the most exciting of the paths, bringing together all the elements of the other paths with a focus on the central conflict that isn't resolved in the others.  Tetsuo shows off his manliness quite nicely in this path, as well as his own bit of wisdom (If he was a D&D character, he'd be a true neutral barbarian with an intelligence stat of 9 and a wisdom stat of 16), though it is born of him having such a solid sense of who he is, where he stands, and how he intends to live and die. 
Neither Tetsuo nor Izana is the type to hesitate or stand around worrying about consequences, as they both have very distinct senses of priorities. 
I honestly wept at the climax of this VN.  I couldn't help but cry for a certain character who got the sharp end of the stick from beginning to end throughout this story (even mentioning her name is a spoiler).  A toast to those who suffer so that others can be saved! *Clephas smiles sadly and clings his glass of rum against an empty one*
 
A few extra comments
One thing you should keep in mind when reading this VN is that neither this writer nor Hino Wataru produces 'standard' romances.  Their romantic elements are generally good, but they are almost universally 'romance born out of a stressful situation', so don't expect a charage-style romantic element in here.  What romance is in there is good, at least from my point of view, and Tetsuo is straight-out one of the manliest protagonists I've seen in a chuunige (since most chuunige protagonists tend to have issues that make them fall a bit short of that standard). 
I'm glad that this VN kept up the four year tradition of good VNs coming out on or near my birthday, hahaha...

Nutaku has been caught censoring dialogues implying non-consensual sex in free-to-play ero-RPG Kamihime Project R, reneging on earlier promises.
Rape scenes censored in Nutaku's Kamihime Project R

Visual Novel Translation Status (02/25/2017)
The title should be very obvious, especially if you're fan of Madoka. The gist of my title would be very obviously parodying very famous anime Madoka (Duh), only in the title I changed 'Madoka' to 'Mina' in the title because the girl in the image header was not Madoka of course, but rather our MC from recently released Shadows of Pygmalion Hajiro Mina. As for the Pygmalion, I played the demo already and saw some info on the internet, at Mangagamer blog post in which they said that Pygmalion here was quite comparable with Madoka there. In the end, it's just my opinion though that Pygmalion was quite parallel with Madoka, although perhaps the real reason I made the comparison between that was one segment from the demo and a scene from Madoka quite similar imo - also more interesting with one certain seiyuu (It was near the end of the demo, and the seiyuu in question was Kitamura Eri which also voiced Sayaka back in Madoka. Do the math). That's all for my writing about the title here, and welcome to this week VNTS Review in which I'll try to comment the progress for some updates here again.
Okay, as for this week it's the most interesting weeks if we looking at the announcements from some company and planned release (At least for this year, which admittedly was only going at 2 months for now). This week we had some usual updates from both of Sekai and fan translation, a release of Mangagamer in which I already attempt talked about, and the biggest one here would be the announcements from Frontwing. As for what order I should write here, perhaps I'll start to talk about Sekai Project first here.
Sekai Project
They apparently had planned an interesting release for next week, but there's no info from my attempted search there. But first before I writing my opinion about that, let me do some roundup for their usual progress here with the exception the planned release. Okay, the roundup goes like Maitetsu was at 95.92% translated, Tokeijikake 2 was 60% translated (I'll just called this update Daybreak for next week here), 1st sekrit project was fully translated, Bokukotsu was at 33.54% translated, and Kanonana was at 32% translated. As for Tokeijikake kickstarter, it's already success from the last week and it's already gather more than 90,000 so no comment here. Almost forget that right now Rakuen was fully translated and starting the editing process (They still on track to release it on March - at least the Steam version iirc). That's all for the updates here.
As for the planned release for next week, it should be very obvious enough. But just in case someone didn't get that, it's Chrono Clock in which apparently will be released at 28th. While the news here was of course very good if I may admit here, the info in regard of the release was still quite vague at that (Whether it's real or not, and I wouldn't count ANN as reliable source for release date). What I want to said is that one again there's still no indication when Chrono Clock is released as of now (Both of Steam and Nutaku page still said that the release date was 'Soon'). Therefore it's possible that Chrono Clock will be not released at 28th, but maybe at March it could be possible if I said here (Especially with this game was currently at 97.28% translated right now, which is slightly less ideal if one want 28th release). Despite what all I'd saying here earlier, of course I still interested with this VN and I would be happy if the release date was indeed right at 28th. For now in regard of Chrono Clock, I'll just wait and see here like usual.
Other
This week we had some interesting surprise from Frontwing. But first let me state that Phantom Trigger was already prepared their prefundia and the goal was at 80,000. Not the VN that I had interest with in the first place, so I'll pass. Though if some of you here want more Grisaia, go ahead and feel free to look at their Kickstarter later though (I'll report weekly fund gathering if possible here later). As for interesting surprise, there's two this week but first let me state the first interesting news. The first one was in regard of Island translation, which announced back at AX 2016 and right now it was in translation progress. For more info it was at halfway translated, and they planned to release it this year. Let's just see it later here.
As for the second surprise here, it was Subahibi in which definitely had some history with VN Translation scene. This VN was quite (in)famous for apparently quite hard to translate prose, had some controversial sex scene even to me (I'm quite with with yuri in the first place and I could handle bestiality here slightly, but maybe I'll need to tolerate yaoi here), and apparently had some philosophical thing. As for more info, the translation was already there since back at 2012 around time when Kajitsu translation was announced (Both of those projects were at TL Wiki by the way). Of course, looking at current situation here Kajitsu was already finished as fan patch and officially released (Including became popular and discussed to the death), while there's still no complete Subahibi translation here. With this announced by Frontwing, hopefully we got this VN with complete translation here and many more people became aware of this great (Perhaps) - with side effects including there will be more Subahibi fanatic out there later lol. Oh, and Frontwing was also planned to release Subahibi this year as well.
Other than Frontwing interesting surprise, there's Whirlpool with their new VN was apparently about entering Steam but it's not my interest there so I'll just pass on that (It's still quite unconfirmed by the way). Oh, and there's also two more Sakura games release at this month (Valentine Days and Magical Girl) which is awesome that Winged Cloud managed to released two VNs in one month (Although the story and production value from them was another question though).
Fan Translation
First of all, there's usual Majokoi update for this week (73.3% translated and 67% edited). While the updates was usual for this week, there's some worryingly news namely that apparently the lead translation for Majokoi was already missing for some times and therefore the project will see some obstacle before finally they got the lead translator again. Hope the best for Majokoi team there. Oh, and speaking about Majokoi there's bigger news in regard of the team behind it - namely that apparently Luna Translation was dissolved and becoming inactive there. Quite sad to hear that, but nothing I could do here to be honest (Although if one interested to the projects, I think they'll just go independent again. Shin Koihime Musou already said that, while perhaps for Tsui Yuri there will be confirmation later). By the way, the Luna Translation drama wasn't affected Majokoi translation effort there (Just coincidence iirc). And speaking about Luna Translation, there's two updates from their projects at this week in which they had Ushieta was at 35% translated and Tsui Yuri was at 67% QC-ed. That's all for Luna Translation final update here (Probably).
As for other updates from fan translation, there's only some usual updates there (Although there's one nukige release which I forgotten from last week). The updates were from both of Loverable and Konosora restoration. For more detail, Loverable was at 54.46% translated, 21.27% TLCed, 16.81% edited, and 78 out of 142 mail was image edited (Overall image editing was at 76.98%); while for Konosora right now Amane's route was at 55% retranslated and apparently there's release plan in April later. For the last update from fan translation here (I knew there's some, but both of the other updates was BL and more nukige in which I'm not quite interested with that), it was came from Fortune Arterial project and right now the translation for 3rd script for Erika's route still continuing at 38% translated.
Mangagamer
Once again this week we had Pygmalion, although other than Pygmalion Mangagamer also bring some other updates here which while not as juicy as expected it's still interesting (At least to me, although admittedly I only interested in both of Hapymaher and Sorcery Joker for now). I'll list all of the updates here first of all.
Hapymaher was 67% translated and 52% edited Sorcery Joker was 76% translated and 65% edited Naked Butler was reaching 40% mark re-translated Fata Morgana fandisc was at 46% translated and 11% edited Kuroinu 1 will be released at March 31st (Not the one that I interested, but apparently it got some interesting story there) Kuroinu 2 was 43% translated and 11% edited Boukaku was both at 69% (Interesting number I think) for both of translation and editing progress Maggot Bait was 16% translated Imouto Paradise 2 was 56% edited 1st secret project was at 72% for both of translation and editing progress 2nd secret project was at 41% translated and 11% edited 3rd secret project was at 21% translated and 20% edited 4th secret project was at 63% translated and 37% edited 5th secret project was at 56% edited Other than my earlier nitpicking, overall Mangagamer bring some nice updates for their secret project there That's all I could said in regard of the updates from Mangagamer here.
As for Mangagamer release at this week, it was once again Pygmalion in which I'd already describe enough parallel with Madoka. As for my story about Pygmalion, I remember that when I'm in vacation I checked Otakon 2015 announcement and of course there's announcement for both of Tokyo Babel and Pygmalion. Back there, I was interested with both because I think those two was had the most nice looking graphic compared to all announcements from Mangagamer (Except Supipara, but that's chapter based and unfinished to boot so it wouldn't count), and I also thinking that Jessica looking nice in that gothic outfit. Enough nostalgia there, and while I knew the review was quite mixed in Pygmalion I still interested with that here. And to close this section I would said better not expecting something like Tokyo Babel though ie many action - I mean don't expect too much from Pygmalion here otherwise there'll be many disappointment like our Clephas there (It's still good once again - at least from the demo imo).
That's all for this week VNTS Review, and see you next week.
PS - There's more updates, and today HatsuKoi partial patch for Midori's route was released (Which of course made Midori's route obviously fully translated (Duh), although it's already is from few days ago though). Also HatsuKoi translation team was already planned their next route to be translated, which is Runa's route so I'll report each update for Runa's route if they had updates there from next weeks. For closing additional update here, right now overall translation for HatsuKoi was reaching 30% mark translated or to be exact at 30.93% translated. That's all for HatsuKoi update.
PPS - Almost forget there's also an update from Denwalts new secret project, in which right now it was at 10.44% translated. No line count indication there, so I don't knew if the VN was long or not for now.

Visual Novel Translation Status (02/18/2017)
Very belated happy valentine first of all from me here, though I don't celebrate it too much here though. The title for this week was very simple, just combined the character name from KARAKARA 2 (Rebecca) with the valentine. And here's we got 'Rebecca's Valentine' - although if someone asked who is it, then I'll said that he was KARAKARA MC Leon. With that matter done, welcome to this week VNTS Review from mine as usual. As for this week, well it's very calm and plain from the updates although Sekai was quite active though. Let's move to the updates then.
The progress for Majokoi was 72.3% translated and 66.3% edited, and for more information Fred said that 8 out of 13 routes was finished for both of translating and editing process (There's also the matter about retranslating and reediting 3% of the VN). As for HatsuKoi, the team were planned to release the partial patch covered both of common and Midori's routes at either February end or early March, although I would just wait and see about that for now (They also do some image editing and fine-tuning the script this week). There's also Sono Hanabira 11 translation project in which they translated 111 out of 120 scripts there. For more progress, there's Witch Garden in which was at one fifth (20%) translated right now, and Tsui Yuri which is at 63% QC right now. Other than those updates about, there's Gakuen Heaven (BL VN) demo and Mahotsukai no Yoru chapter 7 translation release, although it's not interest me though. That's all for fan translation.
Sekai Project
Sekai was quite active at this week unusually once again, although I said that only in term of the Kickstarter though. But before going to Sekai's Kickstarter of course they had some updates from some of their projects. For the projects, this week we had Chrono Clock was at 95.8% translated, Bokukotsu was reaching 30% translated mark (31.61% translated), Kanonana was at 26% translated, and Maitetsu was at 94.6% translated. Oh, Sekai also had their 6th sekrit project was fully translated, and looking at the translation pace I think it's just another short VN there although I might be wrong here though. That's all for usual updates from Sekai there.
As for Sekai activity, actually it's more to the announcement though. Their first announcent was the sequel of KARAKARA in which they introduced another heroine (Rebecca), and her role was she was trying to plant some seed in KARAKARA world. Which is quite interesting a little bit if we considered the setting of KARAKARA (The world was barren because some sort of calamity). Other than Rebecca sketch, not much in regard of KARAKARA sequel for now.
The biggest announcement from Sekai at this week was Tokeijikake trilogy, in which they launch the Kickstarter for hardcopy and as expected it was very successful (Managed to gather 60,000 in less than one week, which still quite hard to do for some Kickstarter). As for Tokeijikake, I heard it was quite good VN trilogy in which it'll be involving some mystery of the two world. As for the trilogy, it was had some history in which there's already the translation project for the first game long time (After Shinikiss translation was finished, and it's from the same translation group). The progress back there was quite sparse, although before Sekai was announced Tokeijikake it was already finished according to the team. And the rest is history, although now to think of that it's almost one year though because Sekai was announced this back at Anime Boston 2016. For my opinion, I'm not quite interested to this right now but the opening for the first game was quite nice if I may say here. That's all for Tokeijikake here, and for more update it was at 40% translated right now (I mean the 2nd game).
That's all for this week VNTS Review from mine (Sorry if it's short there). See you next week.
PS - There's additional update from Loverable this week. For more detail, it was at 54.14% translated, 20.99% (Or perhaps I should said 21%) TLC-ed, 16.7% edited, and 16.13% QC-ed. Also apparently 4 out of 7 scripts from Satsuki's route were translated and TLC process for Tsugumi's route was going good. There's also the matter of image editing in which it was at 46 out of 142 image edited for mails, and overall the image editing was at 65.47% done. That's all for Loverable update here.
PPS - There's also additional update from HatsuKoi and Frontwing today, bit I'll save Frontwing for my next VNTS Review. Anyway, this week HatsuKoi made another good progress with Midori route was almost completed the translation with 90.38% translated (The translator said that they couldn't reach the goal for this update though, which is fully translated Midori route. Real life matter), and overall it was at almost reaching 30% translated (29.66% translated). Oh, they also doing many image editing near the end of Midori's route. As for their next plan, they aimed the release of Midori's route patch at thos weekend (Saturday or Sunday I didn't know). Look forward to the release then, and that's all for HatsuKoi belated update.

Visual Novel Translation Status (02/11/2017)
Welcome to my VNTS Review this week, and sorry for being late here again. The title should be very obvious what I want to said, it was because there's two girl couple who hug under the surface of the sea (Duh), and since we could interpret girl hugging girl as yuri (To most of the people anyway) I made the title as 'Yuri Under the Sea'. That said, I was that the title combining of the anime title Yuri on Ice (The main character was handsome by the way (It's a man, because in Russia Yuri was man name)) and the song titled 'Under the Sea' which was famous as Little Mermaid theme song.
Anyway, the image in VNTS header was from recently announced Seabed in which will be localized by Fruitbat Factory and released at late 2017. Looks like it'll be some calming VN, now that I'd been looking at some review for Seabed (I mean it probably could bore some people though), but apparently there's some interesting multiple point of view aspect in which there will be three POV. Also the casts was mostly adult (At least around 28's) so if some people bored of high school yuri that factor could be the draw. Regardless of all of that, once again I'll be looking forward to Seabed eventual release. One more thing, it's interesting that the team (ie Conjueror and Garejel) was quite highly regarded in their translation back at Tokyo Babel generally.
Other than Seabed announcement, there's no major release for this week if you ask my opinion. Although in spite of that, Mangagamer just recently released Pygmalion demo in which they'll released the full version of that at 24th (Just for reminder). But while once again there's no major release, there's many interesting progress so at least it's okay to me here (Especially Fan Translation one). with that said, let me try to write all of the updates here for last week. Oh, and there's also two additional progresses from Other section. First was for Miniature Garden it was already finished the editing process and starting the testing; and for the second update Dies Irae translation was finished 100% ie completed except for 18+ content which was still in translation progress.
Sekai Project for this week was still their usual way, and by the way Tenshin Ranman was still stuck at 99.25% translated (Although maybe once again there's some cleaning up in term of engine before finishing the translation though). Tenshin Ranman aside, this week we saw some jump from Maitetsu in which right now it was over 90% translated mark (92.55% translated). Other than Maitetsu, both of secret projects were also see some nice progress (1st was 63% translated, 2nd was fully translated, and 6th was at 60% translated) which of course good, although I wonder if those secrets projects were short VNs there though. For more progress, there's also Bokukotsu which right now was at 29.12% translated and Kanonana (Another yuri VN) in which they finally was had some translation progress (20% translated). For last progress, Chrono Clock was at 94.64% translated and apparently they gave the beta version to all of the backers out there. That's all for Sekai Project here.
Last week Mangagamer was released the demo for Pygmalion. It was quite big in term of size, although it was not as big as Tokyo Babel demo though. Other than Pygmalion demo release, Mangagamer was also had some update. This week we had Hapymaher 65% translated and halfway edited, Naked Butler 37% retranslated, Boukaku was 65% translated, Fata Morgana fandisc was at 44% translated, Imopara 2 was past halfway edited (52% edited), Evangile W was completely translated and 87% edited, and Sorcery Joker was three quarter translated and seeing the big jump in editing if we speak about number (64% edited). Mangagamer was also gave some updates from their secret projects, in which 1st project was 67% edited, 2nd project was 35% translated, 3rd project was 15% translated and 13% edited, 4th project was at 32% edited, and 5th project was fully translated and halfway edited. That's all for Mangagamer section for this week, and for reminder Pygmalion will be released on 24th.
As for fan translation, other than usual one we had some other updates. As for other updates here (Not usual), we had Sono Hanabira 11 was had 109 out of 120 scripts translated, and there's also Fortune Arterial translation in which the 3rd script for Erika's route was 10% translated. For usual updates, we had Majokoi was at 72.5% translated and 64% edited, and for Loverable the current progress were 52.27% translated and 19.31% TLC-ed. Also for To Heart 2 there's some decensoring work in which it was at three quarter decensored. For last usual update, there's HatsuKoi in which they bring another significant progress yet (Comon route was fully translated, Midori's route was past halfway translated (55.05% translated), and for overall of HatsuKoi the current progress was at a quarter (25.01%) translated). For more HatsuKoi news, they planned to bring partial patch which cover common and Midori routes later. That's all for fan translation section here.
That's all for this week, and sorry for being very late here. See you next week.
PS - It's quite funny that this week all of the sections (Except JAST though lol) were had at least one yuri VN update there. To elaborate, from Other section we had Fruitbat announced Seabed, Mangagamer released the demo for Pygmalion, while for both of Sekai and Fan Translation segment were had Kanonana and Sono Hanabira 11 updates respectively which ironically made the title more fitting there. Not that I mind that though.

Visual Novel Translation Status (02/04/2017)
It should be very obvious what parody that the title tried to deliver here (It's Love Live duh). But for more twist here, two of three people in header image were men. Yes men, although they definitely looking good though in their disguise (Hence the title trap). With that said, welcome to this week VNTS Review and sorry for being late here. Let's see what update that VNTS had for this week, but first let me comment on the VN at header image beforehand.
Apparently Mangagamer decided to do surprise release like JAST. But unlike JAST, Mangagamer just launching nukige which is quite short according to VNDB. To tell the truth, the premise was riduculuous and ironically mimicking Love Live series further. Best not question that I suppose. Although it's quite interestimg that apparently Mangagamer was partnering with Umesoft though, and I think this was quite sudden because there's no announcement from Mangagamer in regard of partnership with Umesoft (Or I just missng the news). For Mangagamer other releases, not care too much here so that's all for Mangagamer at this week.
Sekai Project
About Chrono Clock delay here, while I sort of predicted it gonna happen, I couldn't help but feel a little down there. But while there's delay there, at least they prepared Chrono Clock Steam Store which hopefully means it shouldn't take long time to release it - I still slightly wary though looking at 'Soon' at release time which mean that they're not certain in regard of release time (And we knew of how JAST love word 'soon' here). Now for Chrono Clock update, right now it was at 93.29% translated and apparently Sekai was preparing the launching of beta version there. At least there's notable progress though if we talk about the translation process only.
For the other update we had Maitetsu which finally had resume the updates after two weeks absence (88.45% translated). For more updates, there are bunch of progress from secret projects, but let me state two more updates from non-secret project here - Hoshimemo was fully retranslated, Rakuen was at 90% translated and Bokukotsu was at 28.07% translated. As for the secret projects, 1st was at 37% translates, 2nd was at 73% translated, 4th was at 63% translated, and somehow they add another project which right now was at 24% translated (Maybe they following Mangagamer which had 6 secret projects?). That's all for Sekai at this week.
Fan Translation
While there's no notable release from fan translated VN as of now yet, overall I'm quite satisfied with the updates from all of the project that I interested here. Let's see what the updates had here, shall we?
For usual updates, there's both of Majokoi and Loverable which as expected always deliver the update in time. For more detail, Majokoi was 72.1% translated and 62% edited for the most obvious one, and the less obvious one would be they finished the translation for another route here (Kozue). Also Fred said that the translator will be finishing the translation for the ending soon. As for Loverable, right now it was at 51.58% translated, 18.85% TLC-ed, and the image editing was touching three quarter mark (75.16%). Also right now Satsuki's route was being in work ie translating process, and there's some work on the interface as well. That's all for the weekly usual progress here.
For more updates here, we had ToHeart 2 was finished all of the editing work which mean it was 100% edited for now and for additional info the proofreading progressing at 45% (There's some graphic editing left as well). Also there's Sukiuso in which the translation progressing at 42.3% and Tsui Yuri was at 52% QC-ed. That's all for the unusual updates here.
Before I closing my VNTS Review, there's HatsuKoi in which they had some nice progress. Personally the reason I interested in HatsuKoi was because the production factor. I mean the graphic was nice to look at, there's ton of image song, and there's also famous eroge seiyuu there who voicing heroines. Although too bad though that the review that I found (At least in English) said that the MC was stupid and useless. But still, I'll plan to keep my eyes on this project for now once again. As for the update, they planned to translated Midori's route once again in which right now was at 21.8% translated. For more info, they almost finish translating common route in which it was at 95.78% translated, and for overall translation progress it was touching 20% mark (20.01%) which is quite impressive that they started this back at December 20th.
That's all for this week VNTS Review, and sorry for being late here. See you next week.

Visual Novel Translation Status (01/28/2017)
First of all, before I state my review for this week VNTS let me said Happy Chinese New Year for anyone else who celebrate that (Actually me too). And for the title here, let's just settle for simple title this week in which the meaning should be very obvious. It's from Corona Blossom, and it's depicted the romance between Shino and her childhood friend Keiji (Who is also MC in Corona Blossom) which expressed through kissing. As for Corona Blossom itself, since it was promoted as trilogy perhaps it's the last chapter so hopefully we could get the full story from the VN itself. The release should be good for anyone else who like Corona Blossom, and that's all that I could said for now in regard of Corona Blossom.
This week we also get Seinarukana Steam release, in which JAST did another of their new pattern ie release without the announcement beforehand (Announced the exact date). Oh well, guess they had the reason for that. And in regard of Seinarukana Steam version, I'm quite interested with the extra missions which said was carried from PSP version according to Sanahtlig. Other than extra mission, there's replacement scene for H-Scenes in which I'm sure still had some degree of intimate between the heroines of said route and our MC Nozomu (Eiyuu Senki was had same change if I remember correctly). Right now I'm not interested with Steam version as I'd already content with original version there, but it may change in the future.
Other than those two release which admittedly were quite interesting, there's actually another release from Winged Cloud. Yes this time Winged Cloud was release another Sakura games and this time apparently they tried to portray the life of secret agent and they named the game Sakura Agent. Oh, and by the way there's already Steam release for this game. Get it if you interested, although maybe not much user here interested with that though.
That's all for the releases for this week, and to be honest the releases not as big as Da Capo 3 from last week. But in exchange of that, actually there's so many juicy updates compared to last week especially from Mangagamer in which they finally give the update after one month they didn't give the update (Or perhaps one year seeing that the last time Mangagamer gave the update was at 2016 lol). Let's see what usual update that we had for this week here, but first let me stated that after finished both of Libra side stories translation right now they begin the editing according to their update (For recall, they already finished all of the translation process for the main games).
While back at last week I said that Tenshin Ranman could be completed as long as they doing their usual pace, unfortunately this week Sekai didn't had their usual pace and as the result the Tenshin Ranman progress still stuck at 99.25% instead of completed (Although maybe there's some behind screen work like editing or QC though). Chrono Clock progress was updated slightly with almost touching 90% mark translated (89.67% translated), and they'll delivered the update at January end here (I'll be looking forward to the update then). Other than Chrono Clock, there's Bokukotsu in which they translated 27.25% of the script. That's all for Sekai, and it's quite lacking if we looking at update number here compared to last weeks but perhaps there will be time when Sekai will had many usual updates again.
For fan translation, the updates here were good enough enough so I'm quite satisfied for now. For Majokoi, this week they resumed the translation work after one week holiday in which the progress was touching 70% mark (70.5% translated) and 61.3% edited. Quite good progress if I may say here, especially from the editing front there. For more additional information, the editing for two routes (Alice and Rei) were finished and they started to translating Mii's route. Oh, and they almost finished translating the ending. That's all for Majokoi progress, and there's also update from Loverable in which they finally managed to reach halfway mark translated (50.09% translated. Congratulations again there). For more additional progress beside translation, right now it was at 16.92% TLC-ed, 15.9% edited, and 15.5% QC-ed. Also there's additional information from Loverable, in which Tsugumi route was finished for the translation. That's all for fan translation segment.
Mangagamer
Finally after one month there's no update, this week Mangagamer deliver bunch of juicy updates along with one good announcements and several secret projects announcements as well. Let's see what I could gather from the update there.
For secret projects, well I still couldn't speculate here of course although it could be quite fun though to speculate imo. They'd announce that back at December 10th or to be exact after Himawari release that they had five secret projects there, and turn out there's six secret projects instead of five. For the progress, 1st secret project was 71% translated and 44% edited, 2nd secret project was at 33% translated, 3rd secret project was at 10% translated and 9% edited, 4th secret project was at 51% translated and 13% edited, 5th secret project was at 93% translated and 23% edited, and the last secret project was already complete for both of translation and editing. While I said that I couldn't speculate much here, I think the 6th project will be released in near future seeing that the progress was already complete (Only testing left). That's all for the secret project there, which I will take my eyes on those projects.
Other than secret projects, once again Mangagamer also offer some juicy updates here. For the updates, this week we had Hapymaher at 64% translated and 49% edited (Perhaps they face the same problem as Sekai right now in regard of text display), Sorcery Joker was at 72% translated and 54% edited, Kuroinu was finishing beta testing, Boukaku was 64% translated and 62% edited (Quite major jump there), Naked Butler was at 35% retranslated, and Evangile W was at 95% translated (Almost finished) and 80% edited. Oh, and for more updates both of Suki Suki and Dal Segno were already preparing for the testing, which mean if all going smoothly it'll be released at this year looking from past experiences (At the very least). That's all for the updates.
For last news, Mangagamer announced that there will be another VN Release at February. It was Shadow of Pygmalion which announced back at Otakon 2015 and they said that it'll be released at February 24th. Apparently they'll had yuri tone and this is also chuunige, but perhaps it'll be like Aoishiro (Or Akai Ito) if we want to compare past released there (Female MC, had actions, and had heroines instead of heroes). The graphic to be honest was take my interest the moment it was announced. Also apparently Mangagamer managed to made several modification to the engine (More on that later). That's all that I could said in regard of Pygmalion for now.
That's all for this week VNTS Review, and see you next week.
PS - Just realize that there's update from HatsuKoi back at 28th (It's 31st right now), but late is better than never though. The updates were common route was passing three quarter translated (76.65% translated), and overall progress was at 14.34% translated. Oh, they planned to translate Midori's route first and right now it's been in the translating process. If some of reader here want to follow the progress, look at their Twitter here.

With Tales of Berseria coming out today, I pulled Zestiria out of my long backlog last week and began playing it. 
I've been playing the Tales series since Tales of Destiny came out for the PSX in the nineties, and I've played most of the mainline series, though I regretted it in some cases.  To be blunt, Tales of Vesperia is still the last truly great Tales game, even after playing this one.  However, my conclusions will probably differ somewhat from the reviews out there on the net, which were mostly hype complaints and comments about other issues that have nothing to do with the actual game in question.
First, I'm going to address the Alisha issue, since it was the one that pissed off the Western fans (the Japanese fans apparently didn't feel 'cheated' like some of us did, lol). 
The second issue that tended to drive some Western fans nuts was the use of a pure-hearted hero protagonist.  To be blunt, I thought this ignored the struggles of the characters in the story, as well as the honest way Sorey faces the dirty realities of the world he lives in.  While Sorey's personality is generally straightforward and pure-hearted, that doesn't mean that he lacks complexity... he doesn't.  In fact, the struggles with the pitfalls of a pure-heart in a world that seeks to destroy or corrupt such individuals are pretty much the central issue of the story toward the end.  I was impressed at the twist the Tales team put on this over-used character type.
Last of all, I'm going to address the setting, which is probably the most impressive part of the story-related issues.  Rather, I'm going to talk about how... Japanese this setting is.  Most jrpgs, for better or worse, pick a mostly Western underpinning to their settings... and visually, this game seems the same.  However, that visual aspect is mostly just a facade, if you know what you are looking for.
As an example, the 'Lords of the Land' system is a fairly straightforward reproduction of the Japanese concept of the 'tochigami', or a kami whose duty is to watch over and provide blessings to a particular area in Shintoism.  The Seraphs and Hellions are also obviously based off of Shinto concepts, as well as the idea of 'malevolence' (a more correct translation would be corruption, filth, or taint, but this is Namdai's localization team we are talking about...lol). 
Even the way Sorey has the seraph members of the team reside in his body resembles the 'kamioroshi' concept in Shinto.
Overall, the setting was a rather fascinating utilization of Japan's unique embedded culture, from my point of view... which is probably why it didn't translate that well to most Western audiences, lol.
Now, for an obligatory gameplay comment... this is perhaps the easiest system of any Tales game after they went three-dimensional with Abyss to master.  The battle mechanics of the Tales series have, since Abyss, been somewhat unfriendly to the less dexterous fans of the series.  While they could be played and enjoyed to an extent even by the more fat-fingered fans, the fact was that such fans ended up grinding to much higher levels just to be able to handle things in the last few entries in the series.  In that sense, this game was a victory of design.
Now to the downside... the way levels make so little difference.  I'm not kidding.  Levels in this game make little to no difference due to the micro-level stat increases and their relatively limited effects on the battlefield.  If you want a shortcut to victory in this game, equipment fusion is the god at whose feet you should be worshiping, as putting together the right set of equipment skills and enhancing your equipment to a certain level is far more important to victory than simply gaining levels.  Unfortunately, since skills on equipment and equipment drops and appearances in shops are a matter of random virtual dice-rolls, this process was needlessly cumbersome and time-consuming, though it does mean that you can theoretically strengthen the first tier of weapons to a ridiculous level of power given enough time and effort.
The gameplay, which was praised far more than the story, is in some ways the game's greatest weakness... at least from my point of view.  To a customization geek, it is heaven, but I went into the game wanting a straight jrpg experience, so it was tedious for me.
EDIT/UPDATE: I forgot to add a section on the Alisha's story dlc, mostly because i didn't think about it at the time.  My opinions on the way this game ended are at least partly based on the existence of this DLC.  My reason is that this story, while it sucks as a sop to people who thought Alisha was supposed to be the main heroine of the game, is great for tying off loose ends, of which there were many because of the 'classic' way they chose to close out the epilogue (lots of pictures, very little dialogue). 
A few extra comments on the story: Considering the amount of salt puked out by reviewers and western players, I was thinking this game would be a worse abomination than Abyss, and I was prepared to lose interest and drop it halfway through.  However, for a JRPG with a pure-pure protagonist, there were almost no true head-desk moments outside of the comedic skits.  That is a huge plus, since the Japanese tendency to have parties full of dreamy idealists (even the ones who seem cynical) is perhaps the worst habit of the industry.  Sorey is indeed, by most standards, naive, but he is quite capable of accepting and comprehending other people's viewpoints while creating his own opinions, which is perhaps the one point on which he surpasses most protagonists of his type.
Perhaps the most interesting way they approached the role of the Shepherd was in how they present his proper role as one only involved in purifying Hellions and malevolence, avoiding excessive interference in everyday human affairs.  This means, unlike most protagonists of the type, he has to turn his back on people at times simply because it is not his duty to intervene.  To the inexperienced, this might seem like a minor touch, but it is one I marked as a welcome departure from the surrealist hero-has-to-save-everyone ideas most JRPGs seem to get infected with.