juss100

I discovered that if you press "P" the girls (feline, pet variety) bounce up and down.  I must have spent another 15 minutes just doing this.  I'm not sure it synched up as well as it might have done with the "breast bounce" feature, though.
 
 

Nekopara: Volume 1
My light side has asked myself repeatedly why I might do this, but my dark side insists on repeatedly clicking the mouse button in the hope of more purrra purra purra purrrrrrr.

It seems to me to be a mistake to approach a new storytelling medium by asking yourself what you want from it, rather than what it has to deliver and how it delivers it.  Visual Novels are not Novels, Short stories, poetry, film, TV or Opera and none of these things offer the same thing as each other and neither have they claim to.  The way that Visual Novels are designed, written and created is not the same and not trying to be the same as Shakespeare, or Citizen Kane or Hemingway.  It’s a different time, culture, form, experience –  as has been mentioned already, choosing 3 VNs from now and deciding if you like the form based on that is as relevant as picking, say, 3 hollywood blockbusters and declaring film a terrible form because it doesn’t do provocative and thoughtful.  It does, you’re just not appreciating either the intent or the constraints or the purpose of the particular cinema you just watched.  Now, I happen to love Hollywood cinema, especially when it’s Star Wars or marvel superheroes … but it’s not literary in the Orson Welles sense.  I’m ok with that because I like the things that are done well and I appreciate to some extent how they are done well.
But the thing I keep reading is criticisms of how the text is “not-literary” and I guess this is frequently put alongside, say good prose of literary novelists or whatever and seen wanting.  Now, as a big fan of Opera (as well as well written Victorian doorstep novels) I think I have a little  sense in how different types of language can be used in different contexts and different forms.  I think people too often go into VNs expecting them to be “Novelistic” (except for the people who expect choose-your-own-adventure books) and are maybe disappointed, instead of considering that VNs are a marriage of words, image and music as coincidentally is Opera.  Now the two forms don’t share much in common culturally or in content or style but I want to point out that in Opera language is, whilst not subservient, it’s different and, on the surface, not as directly important as the music.  You can happily put on an Opera CD and enjoy arias or incidental music etc but few people read Opera librettos without the music, for fun.  Why?  Because the language is tooled in such a way that it works in that musical context and only that context.  Sometimes the symbolism can be heavy, such as in Wagner or Strauss, but even then the symbolism is expressed more directly through musical themes than by what the characters are saying, and in other great operas I find the dialogue to be quite trite at times even when a librettist is highly regarded.  Except for where the composer is the librettist, the librettist rarely gets billed as anyone other than “that guy the composer collaborated with”.  Mozart is well remembered as a name, his great librettist Da Ponte is not.
My drawn out point is – neither the form or the culture surrounding VNs expects or demands dense and elaborate prose in order to tell the types of stories currently being told through the medium.  That doesn’t mean it is not good writing, it means that the writing is being used to push the story content in a clear, direct and accessible way.  It’s like schools of thought on how quick edits should be in movies – an artistic movie director may favour long takes, more establishing mood shots etc.whereas a Hollywood blockbuster will favour quick edits, more crosscutting and pithier dialogue.  Neither is wrong or bad per se(except, y’know, Quantum of Solace), it’s just what is appropriate and correct for the story being told and the audience is designed for.  One can and ought to debate  greatness within the boundaries of what something is trying to achieve, but to call it out for not being something else entirely seems very wrong to me.  I haven’t read many VNs yet, I’m still a noob, but I did read Planetarian and felt it a masterpiece – and what struck me about it was precisely the way that the simple prose and the simple images actually formed together to create a very large sense of the world and a strong connection to two characters.  It was non-fussy and that’s partly where it draws its power as a story from.  I think the VN form is powerful – as one previous poster hinted – because it takes a lot longer for connections to be formed with characters through smaller incidents it enables for smaller plot points to be imbued with heightened drama and meaning.  I don’t think it’s the case that these stories can’t be told any other way, but I imagine that the experience of watching the Planetarian anime is markedly different from reading the VN.  Hopefully, still good but the different mediums will bring out different qualities in the story, I’m sure.

It seems to me to be a mistake to approach a new storytelling medium by asking yourself what you want from it, rather than what it has to deliver and how it delivers it.  Visual Novels are not Novels, Short stories, poetry, film, TV or Opera and none of these things offer the same thing as each other and neither have they claim to.  The way that Visual Novels are designed, written and created is not the same and not trying to be the same as Shakespeare, or Citizen Kane or Hemingway.  It’s a different time, culture, form, experience –  as has been mentioned already, choosing 3 VNs from now and deciding if you like the form based on that is as relevant as picking, say, 3 hollywood blockbusters and declaring film a terrible form because it doesn’t do provocative and thoughtful.  It does, you’re just not appreciating either the intent or the constraints or the purpose of the particular cinema you just watched.  Now, I happen to love Hollywood cinema, especially when it’s Star Wars or marvel superheroes … but it’s not literary in the Orson Welles sense.  I’m ok with that because I like the things that are done well and I appreciate to some extent how they are done well.
But the thing I keep reading is criticisms of how the text is “not-literary” and I guess this is frequently put alongside, say good prose of literary novelists or whatever and seen wanting.  Now, as a big fan of Opera (as well as well written Victorian doorstep novels) I think I have a little  sense in how different types of language can be used in different contexts and different forms.  I think people too often go into VNs expecting them to be “Novelistic” (except for the people who expect choose-your-own-adventure books) and are maybe disappointed, instead of considering that VNs are a marriage of words, image and music as coincidentally is Opera.  Now the two forms don’t share much in common culturally or in content or style but I want to point out that in Opera language is, whilst not subservient, it’s different and, on the surface, not as directly important as the music.  You can happily put on an Opera CD and enjoy arias or incidental music etc but few people read Opera librettos without the music, for fun.  Why?  Because the language is tooled in such a way that it works in that musical context and only that context.  Sometimes the symbolism can be heavy, such as in Wagner or Strauss, but even then the symbolism is expressed more directly through musical themes than by what the characters are saying, and in other great operas I find the dialogue to be quite trite at times even when a librettist is highly regarded.  Except for where the composer is the librettist, the librettist rarely gets billed as anyone other than “that guy the composer collaborated with”.  Mozart is well remembered as a name, his great librettist Da Ponte is not.
My drawn out point is – neither the form or the culture surrounding VNs expects or demands dense and elaborate prose in order to tell the types of stories currently being told through the medium.  That doesn’t mean it is not good writing, it means that the writing is being used to push the story content in a clear, direct and accessible way.  It’s like schools of thought on how quick edits should be in movies – an artistic movie director may favour long takes, more establishing mood shots etc.whereas a Hollywood blockbuster will favour quick edits, more crosscutting and pithier dialogue.  Neither is wrong or bad per se(except, y’know, Quantum of Solace), it’s just what is appropriate and correct for the story being told and the audience is designed for.  One can and ought to debate  greatness within the boundaries of what something is trying to achieve, but to call it out for not being something else entirely seems very wrong to me.  I haven’t read many VNs yet, I’m still a noob, but I did read Planetarian and felt it a masterpiece – and what struck me about it was precisely the way that the simple prose and the simple images actually formed together to create a very large sense of the world and a strong connection to two characters.  It was non-fussy and that’s partly where it draws its power as a story from.  I think the VN form is powerful – as one previous poster hinted – because it takes a lot longer for connections to be formed with characters through smaller incidents it enables for smaller plot points to be imbued with heightened drama and meaning.  I don’t think it’s the case that these stories can’t be told any other way, but I imagine that the experience of watching the Planetarian anime is markedly different from reading the VN.  Hopefully, still good but the different mediums will bring out different qualities in the story, I’m sure.

I think that these are some of your best points.  You're right, the publishing world is harsh and you'll face rejection if you don't follow the rules.  To that end, if he wants to go down a traditional route, I'd suggest that the OP listen to what you say quite closely and it will serve him as well as anything.  I should say that I have a personality that wanted to defy that a long time ago.  I don't personally ever expect to publish or sell any writing self-publishing, but I do think that writing, if you're going to do it, should be something you have a passion for and something that rewards you and anyone who reads it.  The world really doesn't need any more bog-standard genre authors and works pushed out by traditional publishers.  Sure, I say that even though I'm inclined to read that kind of thing often ... but what I mean is that we shouldn't be pushing for that, we should want more from ourselves and others than saying "write this book, do it in an average way, make money.'  That said, I suppose that everything has a formula and it wouldn't be a formula if 1,000 people didn't follow it.
Also, btw, I think that literary fiction contains a lot of invisible prose.  brilliantly written books are often not-so because every page has 20 stunning sentences, it's because the book has real vision and purpose.  Ok, great authors write better prose without thinking about it, but it's not necessarily their best for 600 pages + 

One thing that interests me is that you have this medium that was used primarily for pumping out pornography and somehow some enterprising people have turned that around and made it about storytelling.  The naysayers point to how much cheaply written, shitty hentai there is, but I'm impressed because a lot of it isn't, but due to the need to make money the long, complex novels had to include pornographic sex scenes anyway and it seems that VNs generally still do almost as a nod to the past.  I'm in no doubt that a large amount of VNs are complete rubbish but that's true of books and movies too, we just have a lot more people out there doing their best to filter out the good stuff for us (and imposing their own tastes upon us in the process.)
I don't agree entirely about the translation thing - I've read a lot of great fiction in translation and whilst a lot of nuances are always lost, and you never quite get to appreciate the finest qualities of the language, if a translation is good you'll still get good literature, just not something that is 100% the original author's vision .
 
That sounds really interesting -I think one of the best games I ever played was Planescape Torment, which is another "does it work better as a game or just a story" one.  The other Infinity engine games play better as games, for sure - and also have great stories - but maybe Planescape was a better game for having such brilliant writing??  Which game developer is this?
Ahhhh I wanna play The Tales and Legend of the heroes games.  If only I had stupid amounts of free time   I guess I'll stick to FF XV when it comes out, and I only got about 20% through witcher 3 *sigh*
 
I was actually thinking of taking another look at these.  I got angry with Telltale after they dropped trad point and click because I really enjoyed their Monkey Island revival.  But now I'm playing the new King's Quest game and, actually, I'm feeling that reviving old classics like this is a bit redundant anyway.  I guess the question should be whether Telltale tell good stories?  Hard to be interested in Minecraft though!!!  And I'm a bit indifferent to the way they are mopping up popular franchises, but I played the first Borderlands episode and thought it very well told.  
I feel your pain.  I'm torn between whether it's ingenious or just tedious to play, in a way.  It's all certainly very innovative.  I decided not to bother to play it though and am just watching youtube videos of it.  It's depressing seeing how very LONG they all are, but I'm finding it quite gripping and love the way these games subtly screw over your expectations towards them at every possible turn
 
The jury is out ...   When the text is really bad in a hentai game I find it a bit of a turn off and often the images match in trying too hard to be explicit.  But sometimes it works!  I'm actually finding Yu No to be pretty sexy, it's biggest crime is trying to find too many opportunities to show off cleavage/panties.

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.

Well, hello there, dear oldtimer You'd be surprised how much of you older guys are into anime and VNs ... I don't find those two hobbies to be age-restricted so you have no reason to feel "too old" in order to enjoy any of them ...
While that is true, that generally younger people are into these mediums, I think that from my experience there's a huge matter of chance when it comes to age statistics in anime, manga and VN groups ... in my country, the most prominent fan-organization that deals with anything Japanese (anime, Japanese culture, etc.) consists of many different age-groups and the leaders of that organization are all 30+ who mostly finished Japanese-related studies and/or are heavily involved into promoting anything Japanese. Also, a lot of members are in the age group of between 25-35, I think that almost half of the entire group are all 30+ so it's a matter of chance will the anime group you are joining have more or less of that age group. I personally don't think it's awkward when people 40+ enjoy anime because I simply don't find it to be age-restricting as I already said. Some of the best anime titles (mostly oldies) can be enjoyed by all age-groups ...
Since I am also planning to start up a blog one day, I was kind of curious about your Wordpress blog so I decided to check it out since you linked it here ... From it I have learned you are also into JRPGs which is very much what I kind of expected since usually anime and VN fans also like JRPGs. And I am also in that group I think that exposure to anime made me a big fan of 2D, 2.5D, 3D Fighting Games aswell as JRPG type of games (and later on, also a fan of VNs) ...  I was kind of interested into the matter but it seems you didn't yet post any opinion on any of the JRPGs so I decided to read your reviews about Divi-Dead (it's the only title I know of amongst these 4 you wrote about, I didn't read .Moon, Planetarian nor Eve) ...
One word of advice, if you intend on reading a lot of VNs in your free time (when you are not on the job and have spare time), a great idea is to make a VNDB account ... When I first started reading VNs (back in 2010), I didn't know I was going to be pulled into it that much and never bothered to create an account there but as soon as I returned back to that hobby I discovered how useful VNDB really is for me, it is definitively worth it to have kind of a backlog of what you read already and it's a great tool for searching for new VNs because of tags, language and other filters available ...
Anyways, I wanted to leave a reply on the Divi-Dead review but since you split it into two (1,2) I will post my comments here for both of them:
Ku-No? Is that an anime or a VN? Did you mean YU-NO? I know of a VN by that name which fits in the description of an older VN (considered a classis aswell) ...
I can pretty much agree with this to some degree, the entire beginning is kind of very slow paced and very boring at times, I remember being annoyed by the entire map system in this VN and having to click 100 times on all the same places until the time and day progressed further ...
I will have to be honest here and say that this is kind of true because I did find something interesting in the plot after like a lot of crawling through the questionably translated text and some rather funny H-scenes I loved the setting and the occult theme behind it because I love mysteries and suspense, but my final opinion on this VN is that it didn't deliver my expectations at the end ... And I was very confused at some of the stuff that happened later on and I've discovered that there were some plot developments lost in the translation (I kind of noticed that translation seemed off at times already) ...
My memory of Divi Dead has kind of faded right now (I've read it like in 2011 I think) and I don't remember the scenes with mysterious scent but I do remember some fantasy black magic stuff aswell as badly scened rituals at the end ... But I do have a very good memory of Bible Black (my first read VN that also got me into the genre itself) and the black magic in it (the whole occult theme of it) and comparing them now, my opinion is that Bible Black has done it 10 times better even though BB is considered a nukige unlike Divi-Dead which tries to have some kind of a good occult mystery plot ... Heck, I even enjoyed the plot (if one could say that it exists) of BB more than I enjoyed Divi-Dead (hence the reason why I rated Bible Black pretty big on my list because I love the VNs who can be both a good nukige and good in plot-wise sense), and I could go into analysis of why do I feel like that about it ...
And here we come to one of the reasons why I didn't like Divi-Dead ... If I have to use a walkthrough just in order to play the VN normally, then that's a minus in my opinion, whenever I play or read something, I tend to play it without any walkthroughs and if a game requires one just in order to be playable, than I am better off not reading that VN at all ... When I played Divi-Dead, my first ending was I think the "A" ending (if I remember correctly, it has A, B, C endings and all 2x times) ... At the end I didn't finish off all the endings, I simply couldn't torture myself anymore with it and at the end I had a pretty low opinion of Divi-Dead ...
Well, I guess you could say that for that time the artwork really was terrific but I didn't find it that amazing really ... BB for example has aged very well in my opinion and I found it more interesting than the art in Divi-Dead though I am aware that Divi-Dead is older than BB ... Though I guess you could say that the delicate scenes (bloody, ritual, not H-scenes) were done very good in DD (for that time).
This is true and that's why my favourite nukiges are the ones that can provide both the good story and good H-scenes (story-wise VNs usually have sex as a means to conclude the story at the end, not as a way to make progress) ... It's obvious already that I am kind of a BB fan and that I consider it to be a nukige that has somewhat connectable H-scenes which fit in the setting of the VN, for some reason I didn't find H-scenes in it to be forcable like in some other VNs, I know it has lots of rape and some rather fetishy stuff but all in all, it's what I consider to be a good nukige. Unlike Divi-Dead which has sex scenes but I found them rather to be either boring or funny (I remember having a laugh at some of these H-scenes in DD, like the librarian scene and some others, comedy gold XD) ...
About the dismembered part - you ain't seen nothing yet, try reading a guro type of VN (I agree, it's not fappable) ... As for the forcible part, you are talking about rape I guess and I have to say that so far the only VN where I was okay with rape was Bible Black ... Later on when I read some other titles like Sensei 2, My Sex Slave is a Classmate and some others, I found rape to be quite unappealing in those VNs, it just isn't on the level of BB ...
At the end, I don't think I understood much about Divi-Dead, there are some very good plot twists at the very end that I am not going to spoil here but overall some things were left unexplained (I forgot now which, I read it long ago) and the sex scenes didn't really mean much to me here, I didn't even find them as a way to advance the plot, I remember being quite surprised how sudden some of these scenes were, granted - there were some that fitted perfectly but some of them just didn't stood out for me ...
This is the best paragraph of all, I agree with this fully, now you reminded me why I never finished all the routes xD ... That's one of the reasons why I decided to read explanations on the Internet after finishing two routes ... I just couldn't play it anymore, everything about Divi-Dead was kind of not meeting my expectations ... And even though I am a completionist I just couldn't finish it after all those hours spent trying to get it till the end xD ...
Your conclusion remarks are very true ("could-have-been") and that's similiar to what I am thinking of it. Though I can't agree with the last part:
I didn't find any of the scenes to be fappable, pretty much not a VN I'd read for titillation.
Kind of a long post, sorry I wanted to give some feedback for one of your reviews

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.

I don’t know what the average age of visual novel fanatics is.  At 38 I’m probably tilting heavily on the wrong side of it, but soldiering on with my passions regardless.

I’ve been something of an anime fan for over ten years now but in the last few years I’ve been struggling to keep up with the explosion of new series and I’ve found dipping casually into past classics is just as rewarding as voraciously devouring everything.  I’ve always enjoyed an eclectic range of stuff – I think –and my favourite shows have ranged from Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Rurouni Kenshin (that recent movie – glorious!)  to Haruhi Suzamiya, Bakemonogatari, Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena.  At one point in my life I thought I’d watched quite a lot, but actually I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve been itching to get into Visual Novels for years but the poor availability of translations as well as the time factor put me off a bit – I had other doorstop books to read like Game of Thrones.  I tried getting into Light Novels but they don’t feel any fresher than western ones.  Visual Novels, however, are a different beast entirely and although I’ve so far only read a few– older ones like Eve: Burst Error and Divi-Dead - I’m fascinated by what the form can do, who there’s a need to approach the narrative differently from a written novel (again, I’ve read so many, I still love them but are less drawn to them) and the way one approaches reading them, in-between a book and a TV show, makes for a markedly different but just as rewarding experience.  Anyway, because, like most people, I like writing about my experiences with new things, I’ve decided to try and read VNs a little systematically so that I can see how they’ve progressed over time and to blog my thoughts as I go along – I’m not just going to read older VNs though because that would stupidly ignore the fact that we’re probably in the golden age right now … the only more recent VN I’ve read is Planetarian which was formally and experientially much stronger than the others that I’ve read.

Anyway, hi!  I look forward to contributing a few thoughts and hopefully helping to bring VNs to the West.