harry_kinomoto

Gonna take the liberty to reply to this before Aaeru does. I'm no legal person, let alone a copyright law expert; but I'd like to give my 2 cents on this. For starters, I think the grand design for Fuwanovel isn't *just* for it as being a pirate site. Rather, I think its primary aim for existing is to get precisely what you want: greater recognition for the producers by distributing their works to a wider audience. In so doing, the number of appreciative people will increase, and, hopefully, so too will the credit the original authors and translators receive for their work. In fact, I think 2 of her eventual aims is: to set-up a button that allows donations direct to the VN creators. to fund a VN translation project with crowd-sourced donations alone. tl;dr: I think at the end of the day, the aims of yourself and her both align. ***** I'm sorry you feel that way, I really am. Because you see, that sorta used to be me. I fancy myself a bit of an Artist too. Unfortunately, the recognition and impact I gained with my works was hardly a drop in the ocean. I struggled with ideas of how inconsequential my actions were being. Whether or not that was just the nature of the audience or because my works were just that bad, I don't really know. However, I soon learnt that such thoughts are not worth my consideration. The nature of your audience is not something you as an artist or producer can control. What you can control, however, is the reason for which you create. My priorities remain unchanged in that I still want to get the message behind my works out to as wide an audience as possible. The why, however, is now slightly different: it's now just simply because I think the message is just that awesome. And at the end of the day, nothing else matters. I shall keep on banging on my drum, making as much noise on as many things as I feel should be made noise about. And though I know that in time to come I will take my place in history as someone else who came and was forgotten, I remain convinced that trying and failing to spread the message of my work would be a far lesser injustice against it than not trying to spread it at all. Oh also, one more thing: you should probably be aware that the only reason I and a lot of us are here, is because we were inspired to action by a VN that others cared enough about to translate. Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr Seuss

Gushing my HEART out having finished Accel World; will go NUTS if they don't make a 2nd season!! >.< Those of you guys who like SAO might fancy it too - they're both by the same author, and deal with more or less the same subject matter~

Really interesting points Aaeru. imo your blog post and post above deserve separate replies. Below is my response to your post above. But the thing is, I actually don't think they are. Did you guys know that Fate/Stay Night was originally designed to have a girl protagonist (instead of Shirou) who summoned King Arthur (and not girl-dressed-as-guy-Arturia) as a servant (Google Fate/Prototype if you don’t believe me)?? I’m really suspicious of that decision, personally... to me it just suggests that the producers knew their audience would welcome the current moe-moe character types more than they would their original designs. Let’s consider the anime industry. In the not-too-distant past, producers released K-On: the first anime to concentrate almost exclusively on moe-heavy characterisation. K-On proved a massive hit. Result? Moe-clones EVERYWHERE. The situation is similar to sex scenes in VNs, I think: the history of the genre is inseparable from slavish datesims and disgustingly obnoxious hentai. As such, producers think that every time they make a VN, sex scenes MUST be included! Key is of course a notable exception, but even then releasing Clannad without sexual content was seen as such a maverick move. And even though I honestly thought it was a sign of things moving forward, they had to release a sequel with H (Tomoyo After) almost STRAIGHT after. Even Little Busters followed the same pattern if not worse - with an extension featuring H-scenes for ALL characters (and not forgetting that blasted Kud Wafter...). Furthermore, they continue to be the ONLY mainstream studio that releases PC-based (the original format for most) VNs that have no sexual content. tl;dr: I think VN companies that see the inclusion of sex scenes as a mere obligation are more numerous than you think. I say that because of the extraordinary number (at least imo) of sex scenes that are BADLY placed and/or BADLY done. And though I am totally with you on the idea of free speech and freedom of expression, when one learns that people are modifying their own ideas so much just so that they can please others even when the fact that the intellectual climate doesn’t necessitate such actions, the value of that human right is cheapened very heavily indeed. PS Aaeru: WHY is your member title "worthless"!!?

As much as I've become unhealthily obsessed with perfecting that blasted video I still think this is something I wouldn't mind getting my teeth into~ Like everyone said it's definitely gonna be an "advanced" sorta thing - not really aimed at absolute beginners - but I think it will be a pretty neat way of tackling some of the finer points of the issue in lighthearted way. We could iron out things like what we love about them, make recommendations, debate our views on H-scenes, or even flesh out the implications of copyright law. Might even throw in a segment where I argue against everyone else my crazy ideas against categorization and terminology If we have a good artist who can churn out some good chibi art, it's something I can imagine happening~ So yeah, keep me posted!

@meru: sent you a PM! @God of Conquest: It's not so much fan-made as doujinshi, ie produced by non-professionals or "amateurs". The games follow the 3rd-person shooter style format and are insanely hard - too hard for me so I stick to enjoying their music and other bazillion fanworks that come out from it lol! Check out this intro video too:

As much as I wanna continue this debate you’re right. I shall stand and deliver~ I selected a scene from G-Sen for the intellectual bit, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for (the mood’s not right. Wanted something more abstract; as opposed to didactic like this one). However as it’s probably better to get feedback first I thought to release it sooner than later! I give myself a week to keep searching for a better scene. If by the end of next Friday I still find nothing, I’m sticking with this one. Oh btw, since it may not a final version I put up the vid, published under my YouTube channel, as unlisted - that means it won’t turn up on public searches for now. Anyways feedback please! Comments, criticisms, flames even There are 3 things I particularly wanna know: Does the text change too quickly? (ie can you keep up without having to pause it) In selecting scenes I employed the marketing tactic everyone loves to hate: cut it off when stuff starts getting interesting. Obviously, this is intended to imply: if you like it so much, go play the full thing. Does doing this achieve that; or does it just annoy you? Above all, is the video, as Tay said, simple and accessible? To the point that it’s something you’d be willing to send to your friend who asked you about VNs the other day? EDIT: Updated vid, changed "intellectual" scene. Should be good to go~

@Tay: Thanks ^^ Yes and let me know which G-Senjou scene's caught your eye! I've got the game and finished it so if it's trouble to send it I can find it through my own copy too~ @Aaeru: zOmg the memories~ I remember the internet was still a novelty when I first heard of those and I'd searched tirelessly for that AND that Tomoeda sports day game. Makes me wanna find it and play it again~ @Meru: Thanks~ and ohai fellow UK person Good to see that I'm not the ONLY jp/anime/vn etc fan here lol! B) I have to say I'm quite interested in the subject of your dissertation, and would like to see a copy if possible! I was actually introduced to the very idea when a friend of mine said Jean Baudrillard's ideas on Simulacra are actually quite similar to the experience of playing a VN. Did you discuss him much?? Also, I'm not sure if you've already come across THIS book (click for link) already but it's basically discusses the subject in some detail as well. I don't agree with everything the author says in it, but it still makes for a cracking read~

The second time this has come up today. Like you said, a point worthy of much discussion. I'm glad you brought it up. I am fundamentally with you on this matter. Let me give you some background as I know it: a good VNs is to me a work of art and a piece of brilliant literature. As far as I am concerned, there are a million and one other, BETTER ways of illustrating romance and/or helping your readers "get to know" your characters ASIDE from letting them take them to bed. Unfortunately as you have said, sex has indeed been a major part of the medium and it shows little sign of ceasing to be so (I could write long essays on why I think this to be the case but unless anyone is interested I won't). As such my stance is this: If it does have sex, it is something that is at best "there just cos' it has to be" or; at worst, filthy mud that taints the brilliance of what is otherwise a radiant star. Seriously though, sometimes even if the scene is perfectly in context the very thinking behind their undertones just makes me wanna scream! Freshest in my mind as an example is Daibanchou. Basically, you're a banchou (sorta like a gang leader) that fights other people with the ultimate aim of destroying all evil. At regular intervals you are offered a "heroine sex phase" where you can select your lover for the time - with the effect of giving you bonuses like extra stamina or more money. Having sex with girls to get more money. I mean REALLY NOW. I don’t even need to START saying in how many ways that’s WRONG. Anyways practically speaking, it depends on what you are comfortable with. A proportion are not comfortable with seeing sex full stop - in which case I direct them to the many great VNs that don't have any. For the rest who can tolerate it up to a point, I encourage extensive use the “skip” button. (you can hold down “Ctrl” on the keyboard to speed through text in almost all VNs). The other thing is, you should be able to tell from the cover and title if there is excessive sex is in the game. I shouldn’t need to give examples - though I include with this advice the notable exception of “Monster Girl Quest”. This game follows an RPG format and came highly recommended by many. I began playing it and thoroughly enjoyed its gameplay, storyline, and satires on standard RPG cliches. ...then I discovered the full title was “Monster Girl Quest ~ Lose and you will be raped by monster girls!” So I thought: ok fine, then I'll just keep on making sure that I don't lose! ...that’s when I discovered you can’t get a 100% completion rate for the game's "monsterpedia" unless you've made yourself lose to every single enemy in the game. ... -_____________- I continue to cultivate my propensity for tolerance as I wait with bated breath for the release of Monster Girl Quest 3. Watch this space.

Welcome to the forums!! Should invite the 3DPD here and get her acquainted with the glory of the 2nd dimension too That aside, I've a question for you: which format is the TWGOK story best suited to? Manga, Anine or VN??

dfallengod, thanks for raising those points early, they are both indeed very important, and my answering them well help clarify the underlying philosophy I’m taking when making this vid. Simple things first: I’d already included a cut of Daibanchou as an example of VNs with gameplay. Forgot to mention it in my first post ^^; Now for the more complicated stuff: I oppose that way of thinking on a very fundamental level. If it were totally up to me, I would get rid of the entire notion of labelling VNs like that altogether! Indeed, I think I had persuaded Aaeru not to include such classifications on the site several months back. Nevertheless, I think it’s a point that deserves to be repeated again. Consider what it means to call something a Nukige… And how, I ask, does one determine whether or not a VN focuses more on sex than story (or vice versa)?? Visitors to 4chan some time back will recall how this issue could incite considerable flame wars. I PLAY MUV-LUV FOR THE PLOT ORLY WHAT IS THIS “PLOT” IN MUV-LUV THAT YOU SPEAK OF etc... I think it drives home the point that questions like the above are completely, utterly subjective. There are people who would be able to find deep meaning in seemingly cliched, superficial storylines; and there are people who will ignore even the most amazing piece of literature and home straight in on the sex simply because drawn on the cover is the most HNNGH-inducing imochara that they have ever seen! tl;dr: there is no such thing as a true nukige. Even a seemingly clear-cut example like SonoHana 7, whose official art doesn’t try to hide the fact that the only thing that goes through Takako’s mind when Runa is being all Tsun is how she will sound when she’s playing with her in bed... ...well, would you believe me if I told you that I submitted to my college writers’ magazine 500+ words on what that game says about asserting yourself in relationships? Unfortunately, it proved too much for their conservative minds even though I took deliberate care not to make it explicit... prudes Let’s now consider the above in respect to the actual problem at hand: how to introduce complete newbies to the idea of VNs. First off, anything aimed at beginners must avoid jargon as much as possible because it will only confuse them. Thus instead of saying... ...I instead considered... ...and because we have established the first point is essentially untrue, and that the other two points can be demonstrated simply by showing examples of such VNs, I summarised that to become... And even though I personally think of VNs more as stories than things with H-content, I assure you that definitely did not forget to mention that some VNs can feature Ero. In fact, by including a snippet of Ero voice and a VN cover complete with 2 girls (pink hair-type) with exposed boobs (personally censored by me~), panties (1 striped, 1 plain), all about to play host to a good number of dribbling tentacles, I may well have mentioned it a little too much... ****** I hope that answers at least some questions! Maybe we should move this somewhere else to prevent this thread from being derailed... Anyways progress update! Found a good scene from The Second Reproduction for the "getting to know you" bit. Still stumped for something intellectual though

...yeah. I blame Card Captor Sakura for my chronic fascination with and adherence to the sunflower ideals of Mahou Shoujo anime. Well, more specifically, I guess Tomoyo would be more at fault. That's Tomoyo Daidouji mind you; though Ms Sakagami is cool too~ So CCS, as you may have gathered, was my entry point into the so-called Japanese Otaku culture. But even after the hype of the series and the bazillion fanboards on it I frequented (I defend to the death the notion that Tomoyo is a lesbian in the truest sense of the word) died out, my appetite for it was not sated. I wandered the anime landscape for a while, found Touhou a few years later; and VNs shortly afterward. In all cases, I find myself constantly amazed at not just the works themselves but also the sheer amount and quality of fanworks they have both conceived. To me, that spoke of passion of the highest order: produced solely for enjoyment of the process and without regard (or with less regard, shall we say~) for real-world vulgarities of money, popularity or fame - truly, art for art's sake. I state categorically that I would not be who I am today without CCS. But if indeed CCS was the one that planted the seed, Visual Novels played no small part in making sure that what that seed became is still growing strong today. My drive to help Fuwanovel, indeed one of my main reasons for making so much noise here, stems partly from this: to give back to That Great Anonymous a little of what (s)he *glasses* had giveen me first. ********** tl;dr: It's good to be here, and I hope to get along with everyone! PS: VNs are awesome ^^

Ok I should probably poke my head out of the woodwork and come clean as the guy who's taking over this. Much Kudos to Tay for help provided thus far with his earlier works though! I should probably say I'm no video editor myself; but I think I'm making progress. Right now, I just need 2 more VN clips before I can start editing proper. I'd already asked Tay for ideas on it but if anyone else could help it would be appreciated~ The scenes I'm looking for: -Something that features intellectual discourse. Anything philosophy-related about parallel universes, the meaning of life or love, crazy theories on them...that sorta thing! -Any scene where it is obvious that the relationship between two lovers has advanced significantly after. Things like heart-to-heart conversations while overlooking a beautiful sunset. Or scenes where people suddenly spurt serious confessions before a dramatic incident or an unashamed guy lifts a girl on her shoulders despite her protestations - up to you! Ideally (but not essentially) try to avoid VNs I've already taken clips from. I wanna include a good range you see, so try to avoid: Fate/Stay Night, Little Busters, Chaos;Head, True Remembrance and maybe My GF is the President. I'm lacking stuff from Otome-Ge so if you can find something from them that's a definite plus. I also don't mind if you find something really good from Katawa Shoujo, because it'd be easy to find another choice screencap like that. Oh also, don't fuss too much over the length of the vid. Better to record more of it than less - I can edit out the irrelevant bits easily. Anyone who has ideas, please PM me! (or post on this thread)

In your own words, what is a visual novel? Life lessons. Treasured experiences. Bastions of virtue and goodness without which I would not be who I am today. What makes you love VNs? Difficult. The characters, mostly. The way you get to know them. The visions of a perfect human spirit that they burn inside your brain. The way this vision makes you feel such longing - and the way this longing compels for you to do your utmost to realise it in a reality which you come to be aware actually holds a very fragile world. Name one favorite song from a VN: ok it's an arrange and the original is underwhelming but I did just wanna post that =P Can you think of a moment in a VN-to-Anime where the anime effectively mirrored or embodied the novel? I did think the entire Clannad anime was sublime. Everything seemed to translate very well and I was hooked at first instance. In fact, the moment I tried to play the VN to find out what else I had missed, I quit very fast. I think it was because the anime had already told everything there was to tell in the story - to the extent that I felt reading the VN was effectively re-reading something. (I might also add the Chaos;Head anime is an example of the reverse being true. Far too rushed imo!) *** That's all from me. Also Tay, please check your PMs and mailbox!