Plk_Lesiak

I certainly recommend checking it out for yourself. One thing I should mention is that I think the VN's Opening is classic (it's part of the reason I had such high expectations)
 

Added Aharen san, Kaguya Sama, and Ya Boy Kongming.

Been getting into metal, and this song just got stuck in my head.

Riiiight, I think it was more what you told about the anime that made me feel I shouldn't watch it. Subtle differences. :3
Anyway, managed to catch up on some more of my watch-to list over the last week (including a bit of binging over the weekend) and none of it was trash! How weird.
So, a very positive surprise was I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, a comedy short about a young marriage between an otaku and a normie. You wouldn't expect an anime with 3 minute, gag-filled episodes to have much substance, but damn, it's such an on-point portrayal of young adult relationships. And on top of that, it's really good at tackling adult themes, including sex, in an unpretentious way. It's already refreshing to see a series that escapes the eternal high school drama hell, but even more fun to see a comedy created obviously for mature audiences (in the sense of relating to their life experiences, not being explicit in any way). You can finish both seasons in under two hours, but it condenses a lot of enjoyment within that runtime. 8/10.
Restaurant to Another World 2 is, well... More Restaurant to Another World. Wholesome food porn mixed with fantasy, purely episodic, relaxed and inescapably making you hungry with every eating scene. It looks even better than the prequel and, despite of what I just said, manages to slowly build up its lore into a more cohesive vision of the fantasy world the restaurant is connected to, and does a bit more with interactions between patrons. What it culminates with, I won't spoil, but it's obviously wholesome and pleasant. If you're looking for low-stakes chill, definitely another 8/10.
And then, Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Season 2... I think deep inside I was a bit scared of watching this one, pushing it for later all the time, as the first season is one of my most beloved pieces of anime. The second season is still REALLY GOOD and in some ways it improves on the original, but I'm slightly conflicted about it. For the positives, it tones down the fanservice a bit, especially the cursed Lucoa/Shouta sexual harassment "gags" and delves a lot deeper into the backstory of Tohru and her world. The problem is, it adds things like massive retrospective arc between Tohru and Elma, showing a very complex and deep relationship between them... But it's on the level that is a bit hard to reconcile with what the show offered earlier and the tone of the comedic interactions. Same goes for what we learn about Tohru herself... It's something that makes sense "on paper", but not something I fully buy after what we learned from her behaviour so far. It very much feels like things the writer of the source material came up with on the fly, rather than properly foreshadowed character development. And of course, the yuri stays just as vague and one-sided as ever (with obligatory arc teasing some development and bailing on it at the end of the season, as apparently every anime has to outside of those 4-5 actual yuri ones in existence). And as the last nitpick, I don't think this season had truly epic, hard-hitting moments, on the level of the fight between Tohru and her father. It's even more of whimsical slice-of-life series, but on the other hand, still a fantastic one, with on-point comedy and wonderful relaxation factor. 9/10. Also, little dragon Tohru just melted my heart and there's no coming back from that:

Riiiight, I think it was more what you told about the anime that made me feel I shouldn't watch it. Subtle differences. :3
Anyway, managed to catch up on some more of my watch-to list over the last week (including a bit of binging over the weekend) and none of it was trash! How weird.
So, a very positive surprise was I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, a comedy short about a young marriage between an otaku and a normie. You wouldn't expect an anime with 3 minute, gag-filled episodes to have much substance, but damn, it's such an on-point portrayal of young adult relationships. And on top of that, it's really good at tackling adult themes, including sex, in an unpretentious way. It's already refreshing to see a series that escapes the eternal high school drama hell, but even more fun to see a comedy created obviously for mature audiences (in the sense of relating to their life experiences, not being explicit in any way). You can finish both seasons in under two hours, but it condenses a lot of enjoyment within that runtime. 8/10.
Restaurant to Another World 2 is, well... More Restaurant to Another World. Wholesome food porn mixed with fantasy, purely episodic, relaxed and inescapably making you hungry with every eating scene. It looks even better than the prequel and, despite of what I just said, manages to slowly build up its lore into a more cohesive vision of the fantasy world the restaurant is connected to, and does a bit more with interactions between patrons. What it culminates with, I won't spoil, but it's obviously wholesome and pleasant. If you're looking for low-stakes chill, definitely another 8/10.
And then, Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Season 2... I think deep inside I was a bit scared of watching this one, pushing it for later all the time, as the first season is one of my most beloved pieces of anime. The second season is still REALLY GOOD and in some ways it improves on the original, but I'm slightly conflicted about it. For the positives, it tones down the fanservice a bit, especially the cursed Lucoa/Shouta sexual harassment "gags" and delves a lot deeper into the backstory of Tohru and her world. The problem is, it adds things like massive retrospective arc between Tohru and Elma, showing a very complex and deep relationship between them... But it's on the level that is a bit hard to reconcile with what the show offered earlier and the tone of the comedic interactions. Same goes for what we learn about Tohru herself... It's something that makes sense "on paper", but not something I fully buy after what we learned from her behaviour so far. It very much feels like things the writer of the source material came up with on the fly, rather than properly foreshadowed character development. And of course, the yuri stays just as vague and one-sided as ever (with obligatory arc teasing some development and bailing on it at the end of the season, as apparently every anime has to outside of those 4-5 actual yuri ones in existence). And as the last nitpick, I don't think this season had truly epic, hard-hitting moments, on the level of the fight between Tohru and her father. It's even more of whimsical slice-of-life series, but on the other hand, still a fantastic one, with on-point comedy and wonderful relaxation factor. 9/10. Also, little dragon Tohru just melted my heart and there's no coming back from that:

Hello, friends! The 13th of the month is upon us again, so let's cut to the chase!



Script-wise, we're at that point where the majority of it is written out as far as plot-related stuff goes - the main thing that's missing is the point-and-click segments. And if there's anything I (Nayru) learned from working on Blankspace, it's that the script for those is usually easier to write on the go, once you have a clear vision of what you need to write for, with the backgrounds in place right there before you. Things simply work differently when you're sitting in front of an immersive setting where other things might catch your attention, compared to the original plain text file. So that's as far as we can properly go with that for the time being.

That being said, after trying to code one of the endings with some placeholder images - and realizing that a lot of the script will need re-writing when the time comes anyway - I joined KleeBentz with the 3D modeling and texturing (learning new fancy Blender things!) to speed things up a bit in the field that's currently crucial for further progress overall.

To quote a line from our gamedev adventures: "Could you also share the teeth and eyeballs with me?:D:D"

It's been a pretty productive month in that regard, and we are satisfied with our current state of progress. The momentum that we have now has us feeling revitalized and we're looking forward to completing the game for you all (and ourselves)! (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

Have a couple of teasers:





In other fancy news, with the help of my dear friend hai2pe (who was the main lyric writer for Blankspace's vocal song) we also finalized the lyrics for our EGC vocal song! We're super excited to see what magic Odd's going to make with this one! (*°▽°*)

Thank you for your patience and see you guys next month!

Hey, guys! I'm Nayru, the creator/lead of SoulSet and Blankspace,
and I'm here to share with you a new project I'm working on together with KleeBentz and Xolf!



>> Kickstarter link << (Successfully funded on November 25th, 2021)

The Elevator Game with Catgirls is a horror visual novel with point-and-click elements,
inspired by the Korean urban legend, Elevator to Another World.



Many chances to make terrible mistakes The elevator game is all about following the rules and treading forward in a strictly specified manner. Are you sure you'll be able to get everything right on your first try?
Short sessions with multiple endings A playthrough may take you a single sitting, but it's all about exploring different options. Can you solve all the mysteries? What lengths will you have to go to to find some clues?
An eerie atmospheric setting Immerse yourself in the narrative with the help of a unique, sketchy art-style, carefully chosen music, and sound design.


There are situations in this game some might find disturbing or triggering. Player discretion is advised.
The game will be available for Windows and Linux.


The Elevator Game is a ritual that is said to give the player access to another world by following a strict set of rules.

Motivated by a bet made with her classmate, Asahi's girlfriend Kirin decides to give the game a try, and drags her along for company. As Asahi waits outside of the building that Kirin chose to perform the ritual in, she starts to experience some confusing and unexplainable things...

Kirin fails to return that day, or the day after. Feeling somehow guilty as though Kirin's disappearance might be her fault, Asahi determines to try and find her missing girlfriend... by playing the elevator game herself.

Where will your choices take her?
























Credits:
Nayru - Story & Script / Coding / GUI Design
KleeBentz - Art / Character Design / 3D Modeling
Xolf - Co-writing / Coding Assistance
Music/Sounds from Audio Alchemist

OddTillTheEnd will join us as the composer for an original soundtrack, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign!

Planned release date: Q2 2022

Thank you for your time, meow! ^^

Did I? Last I recall about that show I found that the anime and LN seemed to diverge, and should be taken as such disparate experiences. Though in respect to the LN I agree with Dreamysyu here. It's well paced until it isn't anymore, at which point it's hard to just keep going.
The stuff I recall recommending against was actually the Bakarina light novels, as I find the anime works better as the medium.

Hi all, I joined because I want to help translate VNs. I am a software engineer and have been studying Japanese for 6 years and practicing every day. My favorite VN's are otome games. I'd like to learn how to create patches for VNs, and possibly help out translating JP/EN. よろしくお 願 ねが いします!

Well, the first 5-ish volumes of Average Abilities LN were actually pretty decent, imo. It's a rare "relaxing" isekai that actually has some semblance of character development, worldbuilding and overarching mystery. Though the development was extremely slow, and after 10 volumes it still got basically nowhere. The characters themselves are pretty colorful, and I didn't find them particularly annoying. Though nowadays I'm way more tired of these common isekai tropes, so there's a chance that if I read the story right now I would find them a lot more annoying. My problem with this story is that it didn't end while it was still good. Eventually it just starts getting boring, and the jokes start getting dumber and rather repetitive. The overarching mystery also gets nowhere. The author still manages to keep some level of quality, and it is still somewhat fun to read, but at some point I just stopped caring.
I tried watching a few episodes of the anime, and, honestly, it's hard for me to judge it since I've read the source material, but I didn't like it at all. It changed a lot compared to the source material, and while I don't think it's a problem, but I compared how some scenes were handled I couldn't help but feel that the LN version was better. For example, I recall there was a scene in the LN where the MC intentionally lost in a fight to seem weaker than she actually is, but her examiner still realized that she is a lot stronger than she pretends since she avoided all the blows that could hurt her. In the anime... she just snaps when someone calls her flat-chested and accidentally wins the fight. The Ln also has a lot of these types of jokes, but there were also some good ones. Though, I guess, this type of the anime is more similar in quality to the later volumes of the LN.

That's indeed not a great source of comfy vibes...  It's good that Leadale's author had enough reason to couple the time skip with relevant characters being of the long-lived races. And you reminded me of the Average Abilities show that Poltroon recommended me to skip... From what I heard that might be an actual case of this brand of isekai being more annoying than relaxing.

Sure. And I generally find them pretty enjoyable. Though, I'd say Leadare is still on the weaker side there, because even among the other works in this sub-genre there's nothing that makes it stand out. I don't remember the comedy being particularly funny, and some scenes are outright cringy. The MC is nice, but somewhat bland, and the other characters are completely forgettable. It still works, somehow. Probably due to the comfy feeling it provides. 🙂
Well, it doesn't have an anime, but I'll Survive Making Potions (from the author of Didn't I Say to Make my Abilities Average?) went complete horseshit in volume 6, and it was bad enough to make me instantly drop all books from this author.
 

I think at this point wholesome isekais with female protagonists are their own, major sub-genre and I'm haven't encountered one bad enough to not be enjoyable to me. It's just distilled relaxation, and there seems to be a decent market for them, considering some shows like Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear even get multiple seasons. At the same time, the absolute freakin' flood of isekais of all kind is a thing, so I understand why people get so sick of them and bash every show that doesn't introduce something fresh.
Aye, and funnily enough, I haven't really seen many opinions claiming the anime is a bad adaptation, apart from it having low production quality. The main criticisms sound... quite petty? Like, overfocusing on the visuals and clear inspirations from other series and only vaguely addressing the actual content. Once more, maybe it's a loud minority of people really fed up with iterative isekais? I sympathise, but in this case the bashing feels a bit misguided. 😆

I've read a few volumes of the original LN. And it was kind of okay? Nothing particularly outstanding. Zero story to speak of. OP protagonist. But it also has none of these revolting elements so many other isekais have, and is kind of okay for a light read. I may continue with it eventually when I have nothing better to read.
Paladin LN, I believe, is quite well received, but I haven't read it.

So, I was mostly cut from internet for a bit, but I've got some series downloaded on my tablet and ended up watching some... Interesting stuff.
First, The Irregular at Magic High School... What in the actual f***. I just can't get over how much this series destroys itself with its OP protagonist. Who (warning: SPOILERS!) starts as unassuming badass (more or less a Yuuji from Grisaia kind of character), but is quickly revealed to be:
- A master-class martial artist,
- World's best magic engineer,
- Literally immortal,
- Literally able to make and unmake things at will(!!!!),
- Able to heal and resurrect people with minor limitations,
- A living tactical nuke.
So, this literal living god is shunned by his magical clan because... He's not a "real" mage. Still, his power level manages to kill all tension and cohesion in the story, as there's no challenge that... Well, would actually be a challenge for him, and there's no stakes because he can repair anything. What a freakin' mess, wasting a ton of actually cool ideas and world-building (even if the latter is often done with awkward info-dumps). Also, the incest... Is so uncomfortable that it even makes a degenerate such as myself feel distaste.
With protag's powers scaled down, it would actually be pretty cool visual novel material, as a VN could do something meaningful with the imouto character and other heroines (who are, admittedly, mostly quite badass)... But as anime it's honestly atrocious. Although, I guess it looked and sounded good enough to keep me entertained at the very shallow levels. 6/10?
Speaking of shallow entertainment. I also checked two isekais I wanted to watch, A Farawar Paladin an In the Land of Leadale. The Paladin show got some really bad rap, but I feel a need to defend it to some extent. It's cheaply-produced and iterative, but there are details about it that I really, really like. It's an isekai with no romance or harem, where the protagonist becomes a champion and devoted follower of a mostly-neglected deity. Maybe I'm easily amused, but the way his motivations are presented (having vague memories of dying as a hikikomori and desperately trying to make this new life meaningful – and this really plays into his decisions, like rejecting the immortality of undeath) and some of the characters he meets really left me with an impression. For example, the Bishop, head of the church in the city the protag visits mid-season... He is presented as this boorish tyrant, considered corrupt and power hungry, in contrast to his deputy. However, his first interaction with the main character suggests that there's more to his... And later he has a pretty brilliant dialogue about why he doesn't use divine blessings in public. This is NOT the kind of writing I usually see in crappy isekais. I mean, the show is still quite full of cliches and rather heavy-handed drama, but it's not trash despite of what many reviews would suggest. 7/10
Leadale... Is much less surprising, but I also think it's a bit underrated. It's a feel-good, "finding family in another world" kind of show and... Well, it just delivers. It also treats the fantasy setting in a way I enjoy, for example showing the protagonist confronting with the fact that the world she messes with is no longer just a game and her actions has very real - and deadly - consequences. There's also the pretty weird idea that the protag starts the story already having NPC children (now all holding important position withing the world) she has to deal with. It's shallow and meandering, more or less as you would expect from this brand of isekai, but outside of the children characters being too one-note I can't see a reason to hate it. If you don't mind these "pointless" power fantasies, you'll get exactly what you're singed up for – and I imagine the weak reception it got is mostly due to general isekai attrition. 7/10 if you're the intended audience.
Now, I think I'll catch up with the second season of Restaurant to Another World, it's probably not healthy to just live off of amusing trash...

So, I was mostly cut from internet for a bit, but I've got some series downloaded on my tablet and ended up watching some... Interesting stuff.
First, The Irregular at Magic High School... What in the actual f***. I just can't get over how much this series destroys itself with its OP protagonist. Who (warning: SPOILERS!) starts as unassuming badass (more or less a Yuuji from Grisaia kind of character), but is quickly revealed to be:
- A master-class martial artist,
- World's best magic engineer,
- Literally immortal,
- Literally able to make and unmake things at will(!!!!),
- Able to heal and resurrect people with minor limitations,
- A living tactical nuke.
So, this literal living god is shunned by his magical clan because... He's not a "real" mage. Still, his power level manages to kill all tension and cohesion in the story, as there's no challenge that... Well, would actually be a challenge for him, and there's no stakes because he can repair anything. What a freakin' mess, wasting a ton of actually cool ideas and world-building (even if the latter is often done with awkward info-dumps). Also, the incest... Is so uncomfortable that it even makes a degenerate such as myself feel distaste.
With protag's powers scaled down, it would actually be pretty cool visual novel material, as a VN could do something meaningful with the imouto character and other heroines (who are, admittedly, mostly quite badass)... But as anime it's honestly atrocious. Although, I guess it looked and sounded good enough to keep me entertained at the very shallow levels. 6/10?
Speaking of shallow entertainment. I also checked two isekais I wanted to watch, A Farawar Paladin an In the Land of Leadale. The Paladin show got some really bad rap, but I feel a need to defend it to some extent. It's cheaply-produced and iterative, but there are details about it that I really, really like. It's an isekai with no romance or harem, where the protagonist becomes a champion and devoted follower of a mostly-neglected deity. Maybe I'm easily amused, but the way his motivations are presented (having vague memories of dying as a hikikomori and desperately trying to make this new life meaningful – and this really plays into his decisions, like rejecting the immortality of undeath) and some of the characters he meets really left me with an impression. For example, the Bishop, head of the church in the city the protag visits mid-season... He is presented as this boorish tyrant, considered corrupt and power hungry, in contrast to his deputy. However, his first interaction with the main character suggests that there's more to his... And later he has a pretty brilliant dialogue about why he doesn't use divine blessings in public. This is NOT the kind of writing I usually see in crappy isekais. I mean, the show is still quite full of cliches and rather heavy-handed drama, but it's not trash despite of what many reviews would suggest. 7/10
Leadale... Is much less surprising, but I also think it's a bit underrated. It's a feel-good, "finding family in another world" kind of show and... Well, it just delivers. It also treats the fantasy setting in a way I enjoy, for example showing the protagonist confronting with the fact that the world she messes with is no longer just a game and her actions has very real - and deadly - consequences. There's also the pretty weird idea that the protag starts the story already having NPC children (now all holding important position withing the world) she has to deal with. It's shallow and meandering, more or less as you would expect from this brand of isekai, but outside of the children characters being too one-note I can't see a reason to hate it. If you don't mind these "pointless" power fantasies, you'll get exactly what you're singed up for – and I imagine the weak reception it got is mostly due to general isekai attrition. 7/10 if you're the intended audience.
Now, I think I'll catch up with the second season of Restaurant to Another World, it's probably not healthy to just live off of amusing trash...

Two days ago I finished Aonatsu Line
It's very nice "coming of age" story, with great friendship vibe between characters. I especially loved common route for that. All characters are present and important in every route, which is another big plus.
Yui's and Kotone's routes are "feel-good" routes, featuring some sweet romance, and light drama. One could say, that's "moege standard", but it was executed very well - at least it worked for me, giving me wonderful warm, fuzzy feeling Kind of side-routes, but very nice.
Miki's route is more serious and longer, her being the main heroine. Apart from (obviously) romance between Tatsumi and Miki, it's also focused on the relationship between Tatsumi, Miki and Chihiro. And that leads to the next highlight of this VN - very good MC's male friend character. Chihiro is actually pretty serious and important character, not another Sunohara-wannabe comic relief.
Now for the (minor) downsides. This VN lacks after-route epilogues. While no deal-breaker, I always kind of wait for them...
Completing all three routes unlocks short bonus story after credits, and while walkthroughs sometimes call it "True End" it isn't one - it's actually "bonus prologue", showing four short scenes from the first day of school from the POV of four main characters - Yui, Kotone, Chihiro and Miki. Nice little touch, but I'd prefer full-fledged epilogues still...
Another thing I missed are sprites for side characters. There are only four sprites in the whole game - three heroines and Chihiro. Thankfuly all "NPCs" are voiced, but I'd like to see them as well.
And that's it - it took me 36 hours to read this in Japanese (without text hooking, because it didn't work on emulated version), so it isn't long VN.
To sum up - nice atmosphere, cute heroines, great friendship vibe, and some minor drawbacks - that makes it 8/10 for me   I guess that my initial impression of this having similar atmosphere to Konosora was because of the "coming of age story" + "friendship" combination.
I hope that one day Alka translations team manages to overcome technical issues and translate this nice VN, so more people can enjoy it. I actually think it deserves official release - maybe NekoNyan could pick it up?

Long time no see, all of you! It's been a month, more or less! In the meantime, I've been playing Zero Time Dilemma and while I know many don't consider it a visual novel and for good reasons, I approach it the same way dknjasknda It was... well, it was something, alright. Yeah, I didn't enjoy it... I'll give it a 6/10 but honestly? It felt like a 4/10... Maybe I'm just done with these series and it's my brain saying "pls no moreee" but oh well; I did like one thing! The puzzles!! They are easier!!! I actually did most by myself!! Way to make me feel not dumb lmao
But yeah, the cast was not fun to be with at all, maybe except Team D, but the visuals didn't help aaaaa... I hate it I hate it I hate it. At some point I did get used to it but it was always something that stopped me from being too emotionally invested lol I just couldn't take the story seriously.
I'm almost done with Maggot Baits (finally!) at 90%, hooray! I might actually finish it lololol

I watched Spy x Family far for now. Really recommend anime.

Hello everyone!
Finally making an account here primarily to announce my first solo translation project (soon, hopefully), but for the time being just wanted to say hello to you all! Looking forward to a long and fruitful time here.
See y'all around!
AcidTiger

So, signifying my return to life after a few months of physical and emotional misery (yay!), I've starting watching bottom-tier anime again. My first choice randomly became Monster Girl Doctor, which I downloaded before the anime-watching-break to my CR app and hey, it was way less terrible than I expected! As far as harem trash can be my guilty pleasure, it can become so juvenile and shallow that it gets irritating even as brainless time waster. This anime kept a surprisingly good balance of things: episodes that focus on medical cases rather than fanservice overload, heroines with decently defined personalities and standing in the show's world... We even don't focus on the cookie-cutter protag that much, with girls interacting with each other in meaningful ways and regularly getting some spotlight. More than that, there's some passable worldbuilding involving the city where humans and monsters live together after a long war between them, and there's a really good variety of non-human races represented.
Of course, it's still trash-tier (including cheap visuals and forgettable music) and can get obnoxious with its harem tropes, but I was surprised how the show maintained a nice, relaxing tone and decent pacing all throughout. Even the protagonist himself, as bland as he is, is less a clueless moron and more just too dedicated to his work to give much attention to the affection he gets. It's these kind of nuances that make the difference between unwatchable trash and arguably-enjoyable trash to me. :3 The final verdict is something like... 6,5/10? Quite watchable trash indeed!
Next I wanted to check out The Faraway Paladin, another show I downloaded and never got to watch. I initially heard some good things about it, but it apparently went downhill in a drastic fashion... I'm discussing internally whether it's a good reason to not watch it or exactly the reason to watch it ASAP.

I've been wanting to do a review of one of my favorite visual novels: A Sky Full of Stars/Miazora. I've also wanted to do a video shilling my favorite VNTubers. Why not combine both and do a review while mimicing the styles of my favorite VNTubers?
 

Hi! I'm Alanna - I'm the Founder of Toadhouse Games, a visual novel indie game studio. I'm also the person who ran the Palestinian Aid itch.io bundle this year, I speak at conventions about mental wellness and gaming, particularly visual novels, and I've been lurking here for a bit and finally feel brave enough to make an account and say hi. 
I adore visual novels, have been reading/playing them since 1997 or thereabouts, and am looking forward to getting to know all of you better.  
Have a great day! 

I Playing Visual Novel almost 7 years and i still looking for newest release VN so i join this forum for find the info, I Still Don't Really konow how to use This Forum so i hope you guys can guide me (Bow 90°)

Grisaia adaptations have their own charm IMO. They aren't great, but for the most part, they capture the spirit of the series and do a fine job of rewriting Kajitsu in a way that makes sense for the sequels.
School Days is a faithful adaptation of the game's worst route. Which means it kind of awful and kind of glorious, depending on how you look at it. I'll forever be a staunch defender of both, although probably it's not what you were looking for when asking for "good" series. xD
Is Fate worth mentioning in this context? At the very least, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel are very highly rated.