adamstan

Main school alone is the length of a medium-length VN, as it's around 34k lines.

Hello again. It's been a long time, and many of you probably thought this project was dead. However, we are still alive, just going through a few changes. I'll list everything that's happened since the last update.
First of all, Hasa is no longer a part of the team. He had many irl stuff to deal with and couldn't contribute as much as he would've liked to the project. So we're without a second translator, and are currently looking for on good enough to work on this project.
Second of all, since we don't have a good enough translator to fill Hasa's boots, the team and I have to decided that we will focus our efforts on finishing the editing and QA of the Main School half of KaniShino and release that as a patch. That means that the Branch School routes' future is in doubt atm, but if we find another translator willing to help us complete that half, then it should be finished.
TLDR: We'll be releasing the main school patch as the final patch unless we find a second editor and translator to help us finish the second half.
Progress will be slow, but I assure you that the Main School patch will come out as soon as we can manage it. Thank you for sticking with us, and we hope you're excited to see the patch.

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Well, whatever, guess I'll leave that up to the editor (if I ever manage to get to that stage with this project  )
For now I want to say, that I just finished 5th chapter (some retranslation, and translating the lines missing from official TL), which makes roughly 25% of the whole text.

Good thing they covered the boobs, or else those innocent 17-year-olds might get traumatized!

So I finished the common route last night.  I'm not quite sure how there's an all ages version of this novel, you'd have to largely rewrite the common route to prevent Rika from getting screwed (out of her screen time).

When Aokana physical was being funded or even when a release date was announced I wasnt really that excited about it, not sure why but maybe I thought the FC stuff would just be stupid (and maybe the anime played a part in it). Was far more excited about the following release Hello Lady as it was from the creators of Comyu.
Man I was wrong, this was a solid 9/10 read. Buying this was the best decision I've made, its been a long time since I've binged a VN all weekend long plus the public holiday even. I'd give that score for the common route+Misaki's route alone but they went even further by putting in effort in the 'side' routes Rika and Mashiro as well. Asuka's one wasnt half-bad as well, even though I dont really like her personality too much it was a fun read. 
spirte's art is fantastic, Koichoco's one was already pretty good and unique and this improved on it even further. The music and sound effects during the FC parts went a long way into making me enjoy those parts. I hardly skipped a line (and in Misaki's case even read her h-scenes lel) which means the writing was top-notch.
I get that sprite probably put too much time into developing this leading to losses and their eventual 'downfall' but atleast they were able to produce such a masterpiece.
 
It was so good I probably wouldnt mind re-reading it once the "perfect" patch comes out but I do hope they make it easy to get to the 'new' content. Misaki def needed a bit more SoL stuff as I've mentioned previous
 
Also, lastly thanks Nekonyan for actually localizing this. I thought this would never get picked up after all the google drive fiasco from years ago . I hope they pick up ImaImo as well, thats the only one left from sprite that needs a translation (and maybe localize Koichoco too ;D)

Yeah, pretty nice. (and I can't stand Kasia Kowalska, or most of other our 90's-and-later singers, except early Varius Manx ).
As for my personal list, Anri Kumaki still rules unrivaled when it comes to japanese pop. I think she actually became my favorite pop singer ever, not limited to Japan. There's new album coming out on 30th October - I can't wait!

It's been a while since I've ranted in this thread, right? I'm still listening to Japanese music incessantly and have two new obsessions. First, in the category of old Japanese pop, it's Miki Matsubara: unique vocals and some absolutely wonderful songs with strong jazz vibe to them. Sadly, she's another proof to the rule that Japanese popstars either live to their 90s or die of cancer way too early. This is actually one of the most depressing ones, as she seemed like a really great artist and not just a product of the idol industry. But well, at least there's all that awesome music to listen to...
On the brighter note, I also fell in love with Leo Ieiri's songs, which kind of weirds me out. She's a very by-the-numbers, maybe even generic pop-rock singer, which should normally bore me to no end. But there's just... Something in her music. She even reminds me of a polish pop singer Kasia Kowalska in that her style is extremely unremarkable at first glance, but the songs somehow stick with you nonetheless. Only that Leo's songs are better and so is her singing. Listening through her Spotify catalogue I actually had a problem finding one that wasn't catchy and pleasant to listen to. Few of them really stand out, but the general quality of her music is still kind of awesome. It temporarily dethroned Mako Ichino as my go-to relaxation playlist.
 

While Rika's route was really good, Mashiro's route was a bit boring and Asuka's seem ok so far (havent finished it), Misaki's route is leaps and bounds better than anyone else's. Just the dynamic she has with Masaya, the jokes they make, the way they train
Loved her development in FC as well as she went from completely giving up to being a top contender. Just a bit sad they skipped out a bit on the SoL stuff like maybe it took Masaya a bit longer to convince her to come back or meeting her grandma or maybe someone from the club finding them out on a date during the summer period.
Also this time we know who's the mysterious masked person that sprite always likes to put in their titles, spoilers for that
Its also good to see side characters like Shirase and Shion get so much exposure, makes the world filled alive and not just constrained between the MC and his heroines
I can see why this VN won awards in 2014, i know sprite says its not profitable but thats hard to beleive when they barely release anything, like doing 1 title every 2 years is not even close to enough. There was probably some internal issues that we'll never know about. Maybe one day we'll get something extra for Aokana . 
Wonder what extra scenes Misaki gets in the PS4 stuff though, probably a date? Hope they release that soon and hope its something we can easily access 
To end my post, are we sure Asuka is the 'true' heroine?  Glad they didnt skimp out on Misaki's route because of that, it was like Shinonome's one in Koichoco to be honest but probably even better
 
Read it asap

For a second, I thought "Wow, that's certainly a new and kinda strange expression", and then I realized I'd somehow managed to slightly bump my TV remote, making the cursor show up on screen in a pretty perfect position.



(the quality's so-so, since I had to take a photo of the screen for the cursor to be visible)

Also, in our speculations, we are forgetting the most important rule in such stories - cuteness overrules everything

Yeah, I honestly don't care much about h-scenes, unless they actually contain dialogue relevant to the story. I would be totally fine with going with an all ages release in most cases, but there are some cases where even non-explicit scenes have been censored so I usually pick up the adult patches to make sure I get to experience the VN as intended.
Judging by your description, it seems the h-scenes in Aokana have some value other than just as fap material, so I'll check out a few scenes and see what I think!

On another note, I just received an answer from NekoNyan regarding the Perfect Edition patch!
 

So it's basically the same as if you were reading all-ages edition, since it boils down to mostly just this - skipping h-scenes. It even keeps those cute cuddling after-scenes. Oh, and adds some additional steam to hot-springs CG.
In case of Mashiro's route
YMMV of course, but I checked H-scenes out of curiosity, and found them good enough to continue with them. I was just clicking faster through moans/sfx, but the dialogue put in between was nice
 
Also, I think that you could actually convert non-steam edition to all-ages too, by renaming/moving "adult.dat" file. (But who would do that? )

If that helps - I first finished Mashiro's route in All-Ages version. When I installed +18 patch then, H-scenes were marked as unread, so I could skip directly to them.
(and they were so good, that I decided to continue with +18 version for the rest of the game)

So, yesterday (or actually very early today ) I finished Aokana with Asuka's route.
It's another masterpiece among charage that I encountered recently (after Mashiro Iro Symphony). Really, when I started it I didn't know what to actually expect from it, and it blew me away. All girls were cute, and all four routes were great for me, but if I had to pick the favorite one, it would be Misaki, but only by a hair's breadth
FC/action stuff, comedy and relationships - all complemented each other nicely. Art was stunning - both beautifully detailed backgrounds, and character design. Add to this good music and FIVE different ending songs - simply amazing.
Also, it's probably VN with most wholesome h-scenes I've ever seen so far (if you actually can say that about h-scenes ) - I loved that. They were very satisfying emotionally, and just cute, filled with love. And they mostly kept characters' personalities intact, which is huuuge plus. Look and learn, Chuablesoft! (except they're already out of business, so they won't )
9/10, totally recommended, and I'm really glad it got official international release.
(Aokana and YMK spoilers below)
 

It has a good romance,4 different girls routes.anime was focused on flying circus so it didn't had any romance.but in the visual novel romance is a big part of the game.

So, yesterday (or actually very early today ) I finished Aokana with Asuka's route.
It's another masterpiece among charage that I encountered recently (after Mashiro Iro Symphony). Really, when I started it I didn't know what to actually expect from it, and it blew me away. All girls were cute, and all four routes were great for me, but if I had to pick the favorite one, it would be Misaki, but only by a hair's breadth
FC/action stuff, comedy and relationships - all complemented each other nicely. Art was stunning - both beautifully detailed backgrounds, and character design. Add to this good music and FIVE different ending songs - simply amazing.
Also, it's probably VN with most wholesome h-scenes I've ever seen so far (if you actually can say that about h-scenes ) - I loved that. They were very satisfying emotionally, and just cute, filled with love. And they mostly kept characters' personalities intact, which is huuuge plus. Look and learn, Chuablesoft! (except they're already out of business, so they won't )
9/10, totally recommended, and I'm really glad it got official international release.
(Aokana and YMK spoilers below)
 

I recommend saving Asuka's route for last.

Aokana was so good,i'm so happy it was translated and released in english.

Another quick impression - this VN does "anime episode format" thing pretty well - there's no annoying OP replaying, but there are nice previews at the end of each chapter, and I absolutely love those "eyecatches" (they are animated):


Those chibi portraits really capture girls' personalities
 

They say there is, but I'm still not ready to wade through gorefest in search for good story

When they started playing in Mashiro's route, I had a bit of deja vu

Yup! The references are usually pretty subtle, but in Sanoba Witch's case, I remember them actively playing and discussing the game, much like in Aokana.

I've been going at a pretty slow pace due to being busy with Code Vein, which released at the same time as Aokana, but I enjoy it a lot so far even though not much has happened yet. (I just reached chapter 6)

I absolutely love the amount of detail they've put into the backgrounds! I wish more VNs would take this approach, rather than use backgrounds devoid of people or ones where there just are a bunch of faceless blobs standing around.
Let's just take a moment to appreciate the lady sitting at the right edge of the screen, eating something with a blissful expression on her face.