adamstan

If one is unsatisfied about pairing chosen by scenario writer, VN comes to the rescue - it has endings/routes for all girls

If you scroll back a few pages on this thread (maybe somewhere in the last 20?) I actually have a full review of Maison Ikkoku.

So this post is going to be about Maison Ikkoku which is an ancient anime 96 episodes long that I've finally finished. This is very old anime, and even if you have no interest in watching old school anime, I think it's important that anyone who's watched a romantic comedy of any sort in anime form should know about this.
ANN Link:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=376
MAL link:
http://myanimelist.net/anime/1453/Maison_Ikkoku
As you can see from the links above, this is a very high rating show, and in fact the most common rating (the mode) in ANN is 10/10 which is a spectacular rating.
This show dates back to a bygone era of anime, dating 1986-1988 and is a landmark show that pretty much defined the whole romantic comedy genre as we know it today in manga, anime and light novel form. This is the show you need to be grateful for, and curse, for everything there is you like and hate in today's romantic comedies. It inspired other classics such as Love Hina where the manga author clearly gives a nod to the show in both reproducing some of its original opening ideas, and using names from Maison Ikkoku in his works (such as Negima.) The story involves a college failure lodger falling in love with the lodge manager, 2 years his senior, who is actually a widow.
From the outset, this is a LONG show. It comes from an era where there was very little rush in telling a story, the anime series were planned way in advance and lasted for many seasons. A far cry from today's shows which may come from spectacular original sources (light novels, manga, VNs) and yet only get funding for one season, lasting 12 episodes and doing a terrible job of conveying the original source material. It takes the time to set scenes, draw backdrops, show characters simply walking and pondering in thought at times. It also spans 5 years in story line from start to finish, allowing a generous amount of character development, maturity and meaningful relationship  resolution. What this also means is that by today's sensibilities, this show is SLOW. I was 16 when this show first aired and I can tell you now, if it was available at the time I would have been religiously glued to the screen for 3 years watching this show without feeling it was slow in any way shape or form. However with what we're used to today, it is actually difficult to watch a show at this pace for this many episodes and not feel it's a waste of time. The artform has changed an awful lot. That said, it was an investment for me that I'd been meaning to do for over a decade because I knew how important it was in anime history. The animation quality is very good for its time, with bluray releases that are higher resolution than the TV broadcast and consistent right to the end. The music is decent for its era but nothing special.
What you get as a basic plot in this show is the classic post high school failing to get into college that falls in love with a woman, lives in a lodge shared with lots of other unique characters, ridiculous high jinx all leading to an obvious, if extremely drawn out, happy ending.
This is the show that started all the tropes we've come to love and hate. Hesitation when speaking, inconvenient interruptions, dogs jumping in at inopportune moments, trains passing to make critical words inaudible, payphones running out of money at the wrong time, people abruptly finishing a discussion before the other person gets to answer/finish what they're saying, walking in on people bathing at the wrong time, missed opportunities for sickness, failing to make appointments or meet deadlines conveniently for story purposes, love rivals, complicated love polygons, arranged marriage, beach episodes, onsen episodes, blackmail, big friendly dogs, butt monkeys, knowledgeable barkeepers, first name basis issues, fanservice, ojou-samas, high school crushes, tutors... even a zettai ryouiki and so on. You name it, almost every trope is executed in this story. The difference here is that a lot of this stuff had never actually been in a romance before and was introduced by the manga and anime that this belongs to.
Now having said that this show invented a lot of the tropes, that doesn't mean that it's perfect in its execution of them. Some jokes fall flat, the repeated tropes get irritating, and the pace of execution of them often becomes problematic for a modern day viewer. This is a show where the relationship tensions introduced by misunderstandings are innumerable. There is no end to the how often a miscommunication or misunderstanding will lead to a plot device in its own right, and if you watch it thinking you'll get relief from it at some stage, you need to be seriously patient as these don't stop happening till almost the end of the monster. They're frustrating in the extreme and get tiring after so many episodes. That said, the nice part is that the love rival is also not immune from these issues and these jokes actually work extremely well. Additionally, there is no doubt that the more frustration you feel during a story, the more satisfying the resolution to the story will be, and this is absolutely true here. At least the misunderstandings generally didn't last more than 2 episodes at most, usually less.
Primarily this is a comedy, and to be honest I didn't find myself laughing in every episode. There are long stretches where I watched, intrigued by the story, or compelled to get towards the end, and every few episodes I would have a right royal belly laugh when things were funny to me. It was never a show that made me "sleepy at night" because of the tension that would always be implied, and many episodes the whole romance component would be put aside for character building - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having said that, I was not really "glued" to it, finding a lot of it mundane and really not that amusing till much later on, by which time I'd fallen in love with (most of) the characters.
What is great about this show is the character development of the main characters. The protagonist actually starts out quite a loser and you feel sorry for him only at the start, but as time goes on he evolves into a much more amicable character and you can't help but root for him, hoping (knowing) he ends up with his one-sided love. The other characters too evolve in not necessarily expected ways and new characters are introduced until almost 3/4 of the way through the entire series, yet they work well since they get fleshed out and 1/4 of 96 episodes is still a heck of a lot. This, unfortunately, brings me to the lowest point of this series. Not all characters develop. There are 3 main characters that play the other tenants in Maison Ikkoku who are a major feature of the story, and, to put it bluntly, are a bunch of fucking annoying morons. They spend their entire time annoying, blackmailing, stealing, siphoning, interrupting, getting drunk and generally pissing off the main character and the audience. While this may have been funny 30 years ago when this anime first came out, it's plain shit now, and it's bad enough at the start of the series, yet it lasts right to the end of the story with virtually zero character development on their part. Sure they occasionally accidentally or otherwise help forward the story, but not enough to redeem how unrealistically annoying these lowlifes are. No sane person would put up with what they do to the protagonist. It's strange because the review at nihonreview gave character development in this series a glowing review but fails to mention these three characters in the light I saw them http://www.nihonreview.com/anime/maison-ikkoku/ (they gave it 9/10.)
An interesting point I noticed was the fanservice. One of the females in the series wears a see-through negligee through most of the series. Right from the very 1st episode you get nipple fanservice of her, which is a rarity in today's anime, especially one of this genre, though it's hardly arousing in such old school animation. This wasn't so much the interesting part as the fact that from the second season (after episode 24), her transparent negligee magically became opaque. Presumably at the time they decided it was too risqué for the target audience and toned it down (a bit late.)
The pace of this show is problematic by today's standards. Modern shows have 300-400 lines if dialogue. This has more like 200-250, which doesn't sound like much less, but it is when you've gotten used to high pace shows and for example something like No Game No Life wouldn't have lasted 12 episodes in this sort of series, but more like 50. I didn't mind it that much, but I have to admit I found a little workaround. Since I playback my videos with mpv (on linux) which can speed up playback without pitch change, I sped it up 10% to 1.1 speed and suddenly found it much more in tune with what I'd expect.
So there is one thing I have to mention on its own, and that's the ending. I freely admit to the fact I started watching this show because I knew it had a very happy ending. One thing about a 96 episode series that spans 5 years, unlike a modern romance anime of 12 episodes that spans maybe 3 months and ends with a confession 30 seconds before the final credits is that they had time to conclude this story slowly and completely. It's fair to say that the ending spans more than one episode (I won't say how many in the unlikely event someone watches this) and leaves absolutely no loose end. It completes every single storyline of every character we meet, and has the most satisfying and touching endings ever. I spent the last half of the last episode in tears and moments in previous episodes similarly. The ending was truly beautiful and I did not feel disappointed after having sat through 96 episodes. This show has THE absolute reference for happy endings.
Rating this show for me is hard because of its inconsistencies by today's standards. If I'd watched it 30 years ago I'd have given it a 10/10. But with the slow parts hovering around a 6/10, the good parts an 8/10 and the ending an absolutely solid 10/10, I have to balance things out and say it's an 8/10. If you're patient, up for a very old school anime, and have plenty of time and love romance and want to see how the current artform came to be I'd highly recommend it.

Well, with so many episodes no wonder it's slow But slow pace in itself isn't a problem for me, so maybe I'll go with it now - especially since you say that ending is great. I've made it through 200 episodes of "Sailor Moon" (and enjoyed it ) so 96 is nothing

I've seen (or tried to watch) all of them. Those three are very different from each other, and none are as satisfying as Toradora. Hachimitsu to Clover is one of those meandering angsty romance shows where no one ever gets what they want or need. Maison Ikkoku is a classic romantic comedy that moves at a glacial pace by today's standards before a final extraordinarily satisfying finish after 96 episodes. School rumble is pure no-progress situation romantic comedy.

Toradora is fantastic. It's so good that it's beyond that point where people like it - they hate it because it's so good that the popular opinion can't possibly be right. No, the characters are great, the romance is very different, and it has some absolutely magic moments that it'd be hard not to feel anything while watching it. Some scenes still make me catch my breath today. Flawed characters? Who cares when that's what makes the show. But like everything, it either works for you or it doesn't, and Toradora is exactly the opposite of what I just watched.

"Rumbling Hearts" is on my romance-to-watch list. I wonder how will I find it...
In the meantime I finished "Toradora!". It was amazing for me, 9/10 - it had great comedy in the first half, some drama and feels in the second, great characters, who managed to escape their stereotypes and have some nice development... really, I had nothing to complain about it and totally enjoyed it. Taiga joins my tsundere-top-list, together with Kotori Habane (Konosora) and Mirai Mochizuki Ichinose (Koiiro)
 

Translation
Prologue - 100% (1791/1791)
Main School - 100% (2691/2691)
Tonoko Route - 81% (7088/8709)
Branch School - 27% (1607/5846)
Total - 19% (13177/68206)
TLC
Prologue - 100% (1791/1791)
Main School - 6% (157/2691)
Branch School - 3% (187/5846)
Total - 3% (2135/68206)
Edit
Prologue - 100% (1791/1791)
Main School - 6% (157/2691)
Branch School - 20% (1157/5846)
Total - 5% (3076/68206)
The team is jhard at work. Tonoko's route should be finished in the next couple of months. 頑張って @ittaku
We are still looking for a permanent TLC to work on this project. Please PM me if you're interested in working as a TLC for this project.
That's all for this week. See you in another couple of weeks.

Yeah, of course. I think they actually couldn't legally use it without proper agreement with translators.

As much as I am for that option, I wouldn't like to see them steal it for free. I would like them to pay Pabloc, Meru, and Ange (and anyone else who I may have forgotten about) for that new translation.
But yeah, as far as ero content is concerned, I don't think Moenovel's new announcement has anything to do with that. It's likely Fine Days/Cocoro Function. Or maybe that Snow Present FD of Konosora.

I was suprised I didn't see anyone mention this until now, considering how people go off on comparatively smaller issues with some of Sekai's TLs.
The TL for Hapymaher and Magical Marriage Lunatics aren't unreadable, but they read poorly enough that it had a negative impact on my enjoyment at least.
I also saw some TL errors in Hapymaher pretty much making someone say the opposite thing, "reappear" becomes "disappear", "unsuprising" becomes "suprising", "had me guide" becomes "I was guided".
Those are probably noticable even if you don't know japanese, since they contradict the surrounding conversation and/or context. So it's a bit suprising they made it through QC and such.
Overall I also quite liked Hapymaher though, and my opinions on it are pretty similar to yours.

Welp, some two months after I started playing it, I finally finished Hapymaher. I liked the overarching plot quite a bit. This was a way better game than Chrono Clock in terms of both having an interesting premise and, more importantly, really getting a lot of mileage out of it. The Christmas arc was my favorite by far, and the true ending was predictable but still good. If every arc had had something as batshit crazy as the Christmas arc, but distinct, this game would have been an absolute legend for me. As it was, the common route was too long and the heroine routes were too short. I would've liked more distinct content. Though, that said, the game is still a far cry from something like, say, 11eyes, which has hardly any route differentiation. At any rate, even just that one Christmas chapter being so good was more than enough to make me consider it a great game. Art and music were both solid, too. Not my favorite or anything, but very good.
It's a real shame the translation read like absolute ass.
Talk about phoning it in. I can't decide if this was worse than Magical Marriage Lunatics or not, but it's at least the same level of low-effort mediocrity. Constant bad translationisms, frequent absolute nonsense, shitty English, the works.
Don't know why MG keeps doing shoddy work on relatively big-name titles like this one. Oh well, at least Evenicle and Sorcery Jokers got good TLs, among MG releases I played this year. I just wish they'd focus more on consistent quality for titles like this, especially since this one happened to be so firmly up my alley.

This thread is just like those disclaimers on VNs that say all characters are +18.

Finally we have HatsuKoi append patch finished here, and it mean that the time for Hoshiori project to begin has come. For the premise itself, we have the MC whose an improvement version of HatsuKoi's Yuuma, and more importantly the MC in question (Ryousuke) was come back to his hometown after seven years had been away from it. Other than Ryousuke himself is the improvement from Yuuma, tone work was also starting their trademark in this VN in which the trademark is their long writing in regard of the development, so obviously we'll gonna have a lot of lines (Around 200,000 lines).
Also it's important to note that star will be the major theme in one of the route considering that we have 'Hoshi' in the title (That one route only will be obviously better than the whole localized Miagete, because it'll be uncensored lol), and the whole theme of Hoshiori is the dream for the future (Yume Mirai part) in which it'll depict the characters going forward to their future. Anyway, I'd been looking forward to this and obviously I'll be waiting until the route order announced at Tsurezure later. So feel free to discuss about the project here, although I'll mostly use this thread for reporting the progress though.

It's done.
Next, Hoshi Ori.

I've never had a GF, so what could I know... (maybe that's why I'm reading VNs )
Nevertheless - I think almost everybody would agree, that communication is essential for good relationship. Also, sneaking/hiding won't work forever. So you two should definitely talk it over. You don't want to spend all your time pretending - that's exhausting.

What do you think of Da Capo 3 X-Rated? Have you read any of the others in the trilogy before? 
Y'know, I've been thinking for a bit that our tastes seem to be pretty similar and having read your review of this I now am convinced they are and kind of really really want to read this. I was interested at first, but that combo of tsundere + childhood friend + twintails + canon heroine is much too strong for me to ignore lol. Thanks for writing the review :D. 

Revolutionizing visual novels huh? What, is it going to be set in something other than a high school?

I just finished a rather obscure moege, Koiiro Chu! Lips, and have to admit - it was nice.
After reading discussions over at vndb forums I was worried, but, as it turned out - needlessly. True, the game is built around popular tropes, but it is executed nicely, characters are likeable, and I haven't got to the point of being tired/bored by those tropes yet
Setup is little similar to what we'll later see in SakuSaku, the main difference being that Karen is honest Cupid, and not loli shinigami dreaming of changing her occupation
Game uses "anime-format", similar to Heart de Roommate, complete with episodes, previews, eye-catcher screen in the middle, etc.etc. However, playing OP and ED for each episode was little too much. So, overally it was nice, but I think HdR executed it better.
Common route does good job at presenting all characters, and there are lots of funny bits in there as well. I liked the SD CG's very much. It would be nice, if there was a route for Rinka (iinchou), as she seems to be nice girl too, but well, can't have it all...
As for routes, I started with Karen

It was nice love story, I really liked Karen in it, and how the whole story unfolded. There were some tear-jerking moments near the end too.
Next was Shizuku-sensei

This route was very good too, with many funny as well as romantic moments. There is also nice plot twist, with Shizuku being actually
There were also some nice thoughts about relationships in general thrown into dialogues. And dialogues between Karen and Mei in previews for this route's "episodes" were absolutely brilliant, the best in the whole game.
After that I went onto Misaki's route

While Misaki herself was sweet, her route felt little bland, despite writer's effort to spice things up using Yuu It wasn't bad, but in terms of "how much did it move me", it was the weakest.
Then, Nagisa:

I found her rather annoying in common route, but her route surprised me, as I got to really like and care for her. Also, this route gives off some KEY vibes near the end
And finally, the highlight of the whole game, and the "true" or main heroine - Mirai

Man, I have soft spot for tsundere and osananajimi heroines, and here it was done really well. That route hit me hard in the feels many times - even in supposedly mundane moments. Mirai is great, as far as tsunderes go, she's for me right up there with Kotori Habane from Konosora (well, maybe slightly behind, Kotori being still my best girl ). Truly great route, I'm glad that I saved it for the end.
I really liked the way H-scenes were handled in this game. If I have any fetish, it would be vanilla And the scenes in Koiiro are great, clearly of the "making love" rather than "fucking" kind, filled with some sweet (and sometimes even tear-jerking) dialogues. This is one of those games that wouldn't do well as all-ages title, at least not without some serious rewriting to show all that affection in some different way.
Graphics and music were good, nothing to complain about.
Translation is rather on the "liberal" side. Something like Fureraba, but with some meme references/4chan speak thrown in. It works surprisingly well, and it's mostly done with comedic bits. Serious moments are serious, just as they should. There are many typos, but besides that, it's good.
So, overally, I think it deserves something around 7.5/10
Quite enjoyable experience, if you're not totally anti-moege, give it a try.

I just finished a rather obscure moege, Koiiro Chu! Lips, and have to admit - it was nice.
After reading discussions over at vndb forums I was worried, but, as it turned out - needlessly. True, the game is built around popular tropes, but it is executed nicely, characters are likeable, and I haven't got to the point of being tired/bored by those tropes yet
Setup is little similar to what we'll later see in SakuSaku, the main difference being that Karen is honest Cupid, and not loli shinigami dreaming of changing her occupation
Game uses "anime-format", similar to Heart de Roommate, complete with episodes, previews, eye-catcher screen in the middle, etc.etc. However, playing OP and ED for each episode was little too much. So, overally it was nice, but I think HdR executed it better.
Common route does good job at presenting all characters, and there are lots of funny bits in there as well. I liked the SD CG's very much. It would be nice, if there was a route for Rinka (iinchou), as she seems to be nice girl too, but well, can't have it all...
As for routes, I started with Karen

It was nice love story, I really liked Karen in it, and how the whole story unfolded. There were some tear-jerking moments near the end too.
Next was Shizuku-sensei

This route was very good too, with many funny as well as romantic moments. There is also nice plot twist, with Shizuku being actually
There were also some nice thoughts about relationships in general thrown into dialogues. And dialogues between Karen and Mei in previews for this route's "episodes" were absolutely brilliant, the best in the whole game.
After that I went onto Misaki's route

While Misaki herself was sweet, her route felt little bland, despite writer's effort to spice things up using Yuu It wasn't bad, but in terms of "how much did it move me", it was the weakest.
Then, Nagisa:

I found her rather annoying in common route, but her route surprised me, as I got to really like and care for her. Also, this route gives off some KEY vibes near the end
And finally, the highlight of the whole game, and the "true" or main heroine - Mirai

Man, I have soft spot for tsundere and osananajimi heroines, and here it was done really well. That route hit me hard in the feels many times - even in supposedly mundane moments. Mirai is great, as far as tsunderes go, she's for me right up there with Kotori Habane from Konosora (well, maybe slightly behind, Kotori being still my best girl ). Truly great route, I'm glad that I saved it for the end.
I really liked the way H-scenes were handled in this game. If I have any fetish, it would be vanilla And the scenes in Koiiro are great, clearly of the "making love" rather than "fucking" kind, filled with some sweet (and sometimes even tear-jerking) dialogues. This is one of those games that wouldn't do well as all-ages title, at least not without some serious rewriting to show all that affection in some different way.
Graphics and music were good, nothing to complain about.
Translation is rather on the "liberal" side. Something like Fureraba, but with some meme references/4chan speak thrown in. It works surprisingly well, and it's mostly done with comedic bits. Serious moments are serious, just as they should. There are many typos, but besides that, it's good.
So, overally, I think it deserves something around 7.5/10
Quite enjoyable experience, if you're not totally anti-moege, give it a try.

Another day another reason to just learn Japanese.

It depends on how feasible it will all be at the end. I am not 100% against doing something like that, but the technicalities of how to do that are what's the real problem here. Right now I am working on the original PULLTOP's release of Miazora that never had H-content cut in the first place. And that's the one I have the tools for. Maybe it'll be possible at the end to really put the new edited translation in the old Moenovel's work, but that's more additional work that I am not sure I'll have the energy to do. In fact, even editing this as it is might not succeed. I can only dedicate so much free time to it, and besides having one more editor on the team, I am still unable to move faster with this. The problems might get even bigger next year when I get a job, so there'll be even less time to work on it.
But it's still a passion project for me, so I can't really complain
Yes, that's their contractor (and also one of the major reasons why they don't do 18+ versions - AGM doesn't want to do porn from what I have heard). I don't know how good AGM overall is, but looking at their translations of VNs, I am not overly impressed with them. Maybe VNs really aren't a high priority for them like you said.

I've never had a GF, so what could I know... (maybe that's why I'm reading VNs )
Nevertheless - I think almost everybody would agree, that communication is essential for good relationship. Also, sneaking/hiding won't work forever. So you two should definitely talk it over. You don't want to spend all your time pretending - that's exhausting.

I've never had a GF, so what could I know... (maybe that's why I'm reading VNs )
Nevertheless - I think almost everybody would agree, that communication is essential for good relationship. Also, sneaking/hiding won't work forever. So you two should definitely talk it over. You don't want to spend all your time pretending - that's exhausting.

Yeah, I know, sorry
I plan to actually check both versions in detail once I am done with this, whenever that may be. I forgot whether it was you or someone else who said that Moenovel added new content instead of the H-scenes. I'll check that, but even with that new content replacement, I still don't like the translation quality that Moenovel gave us with this release. Looking now through how much I've changed stuff so far, I think that even this translation, considered to be the best Moenovel's work so far, is inherently still bad. Granted, I cannot really fix all TL inaccuracies, but I can at least try to make it read less poorly for me. That's why this is taking and will take likely much more time to really finish. I've been focusing one part of my attention to H-scenes, and the other to saving the original work by Moenovel. I wish they just hired someone else to do their translations and not relied on a random generator of random TLers of random quality to do their translations. It would have made my mission much easier.