LanThief(HUN)

If it is not clear by the title or by the pictures under Imouto Paradise is a nukige about an older brother and his five little sisters. If this doesn't sound like anything you want to read it probably isn't going to be something you enjoy.
 
Before the review I would like to mention that it has been about one and a half year since I read all of the routes of Imopara so I have probably forgotten some details. To make sure that my general feeling towards Imopara was right I did reread different parts of it though so I don't think anything I will write here would contradict with what I would have written if I had read it more recently.
 
First a quick summary of Imopara. Imopara is about a perverted older brother and his 5 little sisters Aya, Michika, Rio and the twins Hiyori and Koharu. Summer vacation just started and their parents are on an overseas trip due to work. This leaves the siblings alone and opens up the chances for them to express their feelings for each other. As for how it plays out there is first an introduction and then you get an option to spend time with one of the sisters. Spending time means a sexual scenes will happen and as you continue picking the same sister you end up with actual sex scenes and enter her route. You can also chose to just relax and stay at your room, after doing this for all the choices the little sisters become worried and it leads to the harem route.
 
Here is a bit about each of the little sisters
 
Aya is the little sister who takes charge of most things in the house like cooking and laundry and pretty much acts like their mother while their parents are away. Her route is pretty much the only one that actually focuses on the fact that what they are doing is incest and she is the only one to be a bit bothered by it. As for her sex scenes I think the vibe they go with is pretty similar to a wife wanting to make her husband happy.
Michika is pretty quiet doesn't show a lot of emotions and generally spends her time reading books. She is also open about being a sadist who want her brother to be her masochism dog and often recommend him books about masochism. While she is a sadist most of her scenes don't really go that far with it, it is mostly about how she is in control during the sex scenes and how she talks down to him and try to excite him with dirty talk. One thing I also want  to mention is that I found her voice during the sex scenes to be really good and quite a turn on.
Rio is a pretty obvious tsundere who is also a closet pervert. Her being a tsundere and her brother being a pervert causes lots of comedic moments. Generally he says something perverted and she gets mad and if he continues she use one of her ultimate moves which is either elbowing or kneeing him. As for her sex scenes they mostly revolve around different non penetrative acts such as hairjob, elbowjob, footjob, etc. though she does also have some actual penetrative sex scenes as well.
Hiyori is the loli sister, she is small cute childish and doesn't really know anything about sex. The first scenes focus on the main character teaching her different things about sex and having her do sexual things in front of him and to him. Most of her sex scenes focuses on embarising suituations and I think she and her twin Koharu are the ones who does the most risky stuff (doing sexual stuff in public or at home when there is a risk of other sisters finding out).
Koharu is a tomboy who excels at everything related to physical activity has endless stamina and a bottomless stomach. She is also an open pervert who kind of has a rivalry with her brother of who can be most of a perv. During the sex scenes she is very direct and uses a lot of dirty talk to turn her brother on. While she does have lots of risky scenes they feel quite different from Hiyori's risky scenes since she really isn't embarrassed and isn't nearly as worried about being found out.
 
Now for the actual review. I think Imouto Paradise does an excelent job at what it sets out to be. Since they are siblings they generally don't hold back when talking to each other which causes some great comedic moments. Due to their differents personalities there are so many fun scenes and I would say the general comedy is just great. As for the sex scenes I would say that they work really nice, each of the distinct personality work really well within the sex scenes and the main character being a pervert also helps since he can do things like tease them or have funny perverted thoughts while having sex causing the scenes to not become boring (at least in my opinion). One thing that seem to be quite prevelent in all of the routes regarding the sex scenes though is having sex in risky places, while I mentioned that the twins has most of this, the other sisters also have a substantial amount of it. So in general I would say sex in places where others could find out is probably the main fetish of Imopara. Also each route feels distinct due to how different the dynamic is between the brother and the little sister as well as how they each route focus on different sexual things. As for the story don't expect much, mainly the routes has some small internal conflict for the little sister to deal with but it keeps itself light hearted since the aim of it is to be a good upbeat nukige with lots of fun character moments rather than tell a complex story. As for the art I would say it is pretty good though it is a bit stiff in my opinion, also for some reason the eyes look a bit grainy. As for genetalia artwork, well it is pretty bad and range from meh to just horrible. Each route feature one sex scene where it is animated after penetration, the animated part is kind of grainy and it is annoying that it isn't possible to turn of while reading it or in the CG gallery. As for the music I found it to be good and pleasing to listen to and just work well with the mood of the VN.
 
Here is the front of the hardcopy
The back of the hardcopy
The inside including the disc
The reversible cover (think it works best on the inside)
The physical copy is pretty standard and has nothing special, it is just a normal dvd case with a reversible cover. As for importing it well it does feature sexual artwork though it doesn't show the loli twins in any sexual position so that should potentially help against problems with importation related to anti loli laws.

From Frontwing there are two kickstarters for physical copies one for the physical copy of Island which has already been released digitally on steam and one for the first part of their new episodic title Loca-Love which haven't been released in Japan yet. The Island Kickstarter is already funded and to me it seems like it has some pretty decent prices for the physicals with 50US$ for the regular edition and 80US$ for the deluxe edition which is a large box with soundtrack and theme song CDs and an artbook, Island itself is 30-50 hours long acording to vndb by the way. The Kickstarter for the first part of Loca-Love is currently at about 60% funded at the end of September with 13 days to go. As for my thoughts on the kickstarter for Loca-Love, well I think it has been poorly thought out. Since it is just the first part it is rather short (roughly 8 hours acording to the kickstarter) the price for the physical edition which is 50US$ is rather high. There is also a deluxe edition for 80US$ (going by earlybird price, if that sells out the actual price is 85US$) which has an artbook, tapestry, keyholder set, printed shikishi and the name in the credits and while it does have a lot of cool extras it just feels too much to pay for something so short. So the price for the physical for the first part of Loca-Love is pretty much the same as the price of Island which is way longer. I also don't think it helps them much that they made the kickstarter under a new creator name (Loca-Love) which means that it is less likely that people who backed their other kickstarters will find it. 
Moving on to Sekai Project or rather Denpasoft they have opened up pre-orders for physical edition for two new titles this week those two being Love's Sweet Garnish (vndb) and Hard Work (vndb). While I don't find any of these titles particulary interesting I do like that they have started to focus a lot of releasing physical editions through Denpasoft and not relying on Kickstarter for all of their physicals (if only they now can get better at quality control). While it does interest me that they have gone with this direction I am rather surprised by the titles they have picked. Both of them are short meaning that the extra price for the physical itself and shipping will be quite large compared to the original price and thus make buying them less attractive. Considering that MG only does physicals for titles that sell well I wonder how Denpasoft is going to be able to not lose any money on releasing physicals for these two titles. At the end I also wanted to mention that based on a tweet from Denpasoft it seems like they plan on focusing more on their physicals so I think it will be interesting to see how things turn out with them regarding physical releases.
 
Venus Blood Frontier Kickstarter has now opened for those interested, the price for the physical edition tier is 66US$ though it is only all ages so physicals for this might not be the best. From the looks of it they plan on putting in a lot of effort into making it a good localization, while it isn't really a title that appeal to me I really hope it succeed. Considering that they seems to be doing things right with the kickstarter I think it would give some really nice feedback to the japanese developers of what we want from a localization if this gets funded.
 
Another Kickstarter is the one for Seven Days which is from Fruitbait Factory. This has a physical edition available for 60US$ that include a visual book and one with a larger box and a dakimakura for 150US$.
 
From Nekonyan there is the confirmation that there is going to be a physical release of Aokana. I know this was technically confirmed last month, but I wanted to mention it since it was the 31st and since this is the first blog entry I make meaning I don't have any for August.
 
Then for some kickstarter updates, Memory's Dogma has promised free physical copy of Code:02 and Code:03 to those who haven't requested a refund, Shining Song Starnova has now finished the design of the box for their physical release and A light in the dark physicals are currently getting printed.
 
Here are a few titles that may be close to getting sold out or have a limited time left for pre-order.
Princess Evangile limited edition went out of print this month.
Eroge sex and games makes sexy games only have two copies left on Mangagamer, but is available from Jlist and Rightstufanime, though I am not sure how many they have in stock or whether there will be reprints.
Kara no Shoujo only has one copie left on Mangagamer, but is available from Jlist and Rightstufanime, though I am not sure how many they have in stock or whether there will be reprints.
Nekopara volume 2 and volume 3 are said to be limited on Denpasoft, not sure how much stock they have left but will put it here on the list anyways since it can sell out at any time.
There is also a limited amount of physical copies for Clannad: Side Stories at sekaiproject, it seems to be leftovers from the original kickstarter.
On PS vita the physical edition of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternate is being sold over at ricedigital and I am pretty sure that it is a limited run.
As for backerkits that are still open there are A Light in the Dark, Alpha's Adventures and Sakura Sakura
New kickstarters, Island, Loca-Love, Venus Blood Frontier and Seven days
 

Index
Disclaimer: I am not being paid to promote any of these apps.
From here on out, I’ll be shifting the focus of this blog to the more indirect methods of improving learning efficiency. While these techniques aren’t designed for learning Japanese specifically, they can greatly enhance your ability to retain information and study consistently. Sorry I won’t be able to write more posts like the one from last week, but I’m still learning at a snails’ pace due to college-imposed time constraints. Hopefully I'll be able to write another post like that in the future as I continue to study.
 
Pomodoro Technique
The pomodoro technique is an effective learning method that can not only improve your concentration and motivation, but help you manage your time more reliably. The way this technique works involves setting a pomodoro duration for somewhere between 20 and 45 minutes (25 is recommended), taking a short break (typically 5 minutes) between each pomodoro, and taking a long break (typically 15 minutes) after finishing a set of 4 pomodoros. Concentrating on any kind of learning material is going to be taxing on the brain, so you’ll want to let it cool down at times to make studying more productive and enjoyable. It’s thanks to this technique that I can study for 8 hours in a day without getting a migraine, and I am finding it easier to not get lost in thought.
 
There are specialized pomodoro timers you can use that will give you a timer for both the study and the break duration, and they'll be able to keep track of when you need a longer break instead of a shorter one. You should be able to find one just fine in Google Play or App Store, and you can buy a physical pomodoro timer on Amazon if you don’t have a smart phone (a kitchen timer and pen and paper can work if you don’t want to buy this). I don’t know much about the options for App Store or physical timers, but I do like Pomodoro Timer Lite on Google Play since it has a minimalist design, decent customization, and only shows a single popup ad asking you to buy the pro version once per day (it's a minor annoyance, but can be removed for just a few bucks (USD)).
 

 
Habit Development
One of the most effective ways to commit yourself to studying Japanese is by making it a regular habit. It takes roughly 30 days for something to become a habit, and 66 days to become fully committed to it. The key to making this work is setting realistic goals for yourself and overemphasizing the importance of following through with them every day. You’re free to choose whatever method fits you best, but I like to take a baby steps approach by setting small goals that only require a trivial amount of time, and gradually building on them by increasing the duration after a successful 66-day commitment. Even on the most miserable and depressing days, I can bring myself to study Japanese for one Pomodoro duration at the bare minimum, and aim for three pomodoros when I’m not down in the dumps. While going for the minimum may not produce the most optimal results, it’s still better than doing nothing.
 
I recommend using a habit tracker app so that you can reliably measure the number of days you commit to a habit without the frustration of noting everything on paper. For both App Store and Google Play, I recommend using Habit Bull since it’s ad free, gives you reminders to update your habits, and provides a good interface to work with. I’d advise staying away from the pro version since you shouldn’t be tracking more than 1-3 habits at a time (anything more than 3 is difficult to sustain), and I’ve come across several reviews and posts from their in-app forums talking about how the devs aren’t very responsive when it comes to purchase issues.
 

 
Developing habits can also serve as a useful method of measuring success when learning Japanese, and being able to measure progress is an excellent way to keep yourself motivated. As I mentioned in the introduction post, learning Japanese will take years of commitment, but developing a habit is something that can be done in a matter of months.
 
Daily Routine Checklist
It’s never a bad idea to give your lifestyle some form of structure, especially when you have issues committing to tasks you want to do. Even though I’ve been doing it for years, making lifestyle changes has always been a struggle for me because I didn’t have a good point of reference to look to. But that has changed drastically since I started writing down the steps to a workable daily routine using a checklist. That’s not to say I didn’t at least try to follow a routine before, but oftentimes I would either add too many changes to adjust to or I would forget to do something I wanted to. Given how unreliable the human brain is when it comes to extracting details from memory (usually), it’s much better to see the steps you need to take written out for you. Doing so can also make it easier to adjust to whatever changes you may need to incorporate.
 
For this particular task, I can really only recommend ColorNote on Android. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find a reasonable alternative on iOS for managing a daily routine, so I’m afraid you may be out of luck if you own an iPhone (if anyone has suggestions, please let me know). And managing something like this without a smart phone is probably more trouble than it’s worth. As far as ColorNote goes, it has an easy-to-work-with interface that allows you to add checklist notes from the top or bottom, uncheck everything on the list through menu commands, rearrange notes using an edit mode, and organize a list of notes through color coding mechanisms. That way I can write down my entire routine and check each item off as I go through them. That’s not to say I’ll spend the whole day looking at a checklist; I mostly find myself using it during transition periods. Another neat aspect of ColorNote's list design is that you can skip certain tasks when you're not able to do them and come back to them later when you're able to.
 

 
Distraction Management
Unfortunately, many of the methods you’ll use to learn Japanese (especially as a beginner) will require a computer to use. This means that you’ll be subject to a number of potential distractions a computer can provide. Thankfully there are a couple solutions available to help you stay focused.
 
If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely have some kind of obsessive compulsion to browse through various social websites, hoping to find that one voluptuous post that caters to your lust for immediate gratification. Thankfully, LeechBlock provides a solution to that. This addon is surprisingly well-designed, given how it allows you the freedom to block specific web pages at specific times and days, and even prevents you from accessing the options to change settings when it meets the conditions you set. Oh, and did I mention it has different block sets for multiple conditions? Yeah, it’s sexy. Unfortunately this plugin only works with web page loading on Firefox, so you’ll want something like Stay Focused (which isn’t as good, in my opinion) for Chrome if you’re ever inclined to use that. Since I’m mainly a Firefox user, I only use Stay Focused to keep myself from switching browsers when my blocks go up. I haven’t found anything for Microsoft’s browsers, but I would like to think no one is desperate enough to fall back on those.
 

 
Now for any applications you have installed locally, you’re going to need something that can directly interact with your OS, which is where Cold Turkey comes in. As with LeechBlock, you can have this set for specific times and days, but it works for applications in addition to web pages. Sadly, this does come with a $25 price tag, but at least you’ll have the option to try it for a week before buying it, and you only have to pay for it once (not a bad deal, really). Once you’ve entered a time period you’ve set for a program/webpage, Cold Turkey will terminate the program or block the page on the spot, and it will kill blocked programs immediately if you try to start them back up. That way you can keep yourself from accessing distracting games and desktop apps and focus more on your studies. Unfortunately, you are still going to need some semblance of discipline to not distract yourself with something that isn’t on your computer, or find a workaround to get to your blocked content. But at least you won’t be as easily distracted as you were before.
Afterword
Thanks again for your continued readership! Ya know, this article was a lot shorter before I started editing it, which is unusual since my edits mostly involve cutting content. But yeah, this time I wanted to add in a few other applications I didn't have originally since they were also very helpful to me. Also, if any of you are wondering why I kept the title as is despite the nature of this post, it's mostly because I consider the Learning How To Learn series a documentation of my own personal development in the form of a guide. It's definitely not the most conventional way to write a guide, but I think there are more than enough of those already, lol. I'm just going to keep writing what I want to and hope someone finds them useful.
 
In part 4, I'll go over some methods of coping with depression in order to keep it from significantly interfering with your learning goals. Hope to see you there!

Foreword - Since we already knew that Decay would gonna be busy in regard of Nekonyan seeing that he's one of their staff and admin Tay was still absent (Probably from travelling), predictably we didn't have VNTS for this week as well. So one again I decided to write this week VNTS Review, and I hope that you'll enjoy this week VNTS Review.
As for this week title, I understand if most of the user here wouldn't understand it just by looking it alone, so I'll explain the title first. For the information about who is Kirara and Wataru both of those two were the characters from Go Princess PreCure (GPPC), in which the former was a PreCure while for the latter he's the big brother of Kirara's fellow PreCure. As for the shipping, I'd read that the coupling for those two characters were quite well known albeit very subtle because there's more prominence shipping at GPPC there. Obviously I wouldn't talk about the GPPC shippings here, but instead I'd use the shipping as the seiyuu joke here because we have Hello Lady announcement from Nekonyan. For more detail here, the seiyuu for Wataru was Okitsu Kazuyuki who voiced Hello Lady badass MC Shinri Narita using pseudonym Umesaki Charlie, while the seiyuu for Kirara was Yamamura Hibiku and in Hello Lady she was voicing Katsuragi Sorako using pseudonym Mizusaki Lime.
My rambling aside, this week we have exciting announcements from Nekonyan and an average one from Sol Press. Other than the announcement from those two companies, we have some updates from both of fan translation and Mangagamer. Speaking about fan translation, seeing that some of the official translator was probably the fan of their work and we saw many of fan translation project going official, perhaps rather than fan translation it would be fitting to call it unofficial translation. But still I understand though if people felt that the word 'unofficial' could be sounds rude for the people who do the translation, so I'll just keep the term 'fan translation' here. Anyway, welcome to this week VNTS Review and let's see what I can write for this week as well.
No big update from Sekai at this week, but it seems to be the norm for them so whatever. I know that there's some background work in regard of their projects, but so far there's no visible progress on their bigger announcement such as Senren Banka and Nanairo, with the former is going to be ironic because Nekonyan managed to get first official release of Yuzusoft VN (Sanoba). That aside, even if I say 'no big update' it didn't mena that Sekai didn't have any update for this week because they still have one small update, and it was in regard of the exact release date for Love'S Sweet Garnish aka Koiama. The premise was looks like usual moege with cafe, so I'll just pass on this for now.
As for fan translation more or less it's another usual week, although too bad though that Summer Pocket demo release was delayed again and this time they want to look up the script so the estimation release date for now was unknown until it was announced (Hope the best for the team). Speaking about delayed, Astro did say that there's some mess in regard of Clover Days so he couldn't release it because of some legal matter or something like that, so safe to say that perhaps he did messed up in regard of the project. I hope that the mess in regard of Clovers Days were sorted out now that the project was in torpor (Because Astro didn't say that it was dead), if only for the sake of the translator (Ittaku) - sorry for going personal here. For the progress, we have Eustia was at 50.42% translated along with 41.07% edited, Harugi's overall was at 15% translated with Toko's route was past halfway (51%) translated and Branch was at 26% translated (Along with 13% edited), Pure Pure was at 82.31% translated with Tobari's route was at 32.71% translated, and Watamasu show another progress with current progress was at 14% translated.
From Mangagamer, we saw in Twitter that they indeed finished the translating and editing processes for Haretaka, and since we already knew about that back at Otakon we can treat the tweet as a direct confirmation from Mangagamer. For now I just wonder when they'll do the beta testing for Haretaka, and I hope that they'll do it in the near future. Other than Haretaka, we have Maggot Bait was at 95% translated (Good job to Kouryuu for almost survive in Maggot Bait), Amrilato was both fully translated and edited, Kyonyuu Fantasy 2 was fully translated, Son Nyl was at 58% translated, Trinoline was at 80% edited, Sukehime was at 10% translated, and Escalayer was at 72% translated along with 56% edited (Good job for the progress there Quof). Also while this is not included in their Twitter, the crowdfund for Overdrive's Swan Song (MUSICA) was already going and right now they almost gathered 90 million yen or in dollar it would be at 800,000. Even though we still don't know much about this, I'll going to keep my eyes on this since looking from the base goal alone it looks interesting.
Other
There'll be much to talk about Nekonyan's announcements here, but before that let's see some roundup for this section first. Since August here was already ended, obviously the KS for Frontier was delayed and therefore they'll set up the new month in which it'll be at this month - I just hope that they didn't keep delaying it to the next month each time the month ended. There's neighbor as well, in which they already released the demo for the backer. While I did saw some good news about this, unfortunately the graphic was quite bad so I would pass on this. Although of course it might have some potential, just like Fata Morgana.
We also have Punchline VN release, in which it was adaptation from the anime series with new scenario. While the staff behind it looks promising with Uchikoshi work as the writer with both of Nakazawa (As senior director) and Abo (As other composer), it would be quite hard for them to have Punchline to be equal to Ever17 (Those three people were work together in Ever17) because the premise itselves were quite absurd in the first place. The premise for Punchline itself is that we have a boy who have a curse that if he saw woman's panties twice he'll be dead and a meteor would destroy the Earth (There'll be alot of that seeing that this is one of fanservice anime), and yet it shouldn't be a problem to a boy himself because he have an ability to travel back in time as a ghost to fix up his mistake. I'm definitely don't make up the premise here, because it's the real premise itself. So if you want to see of how both of Nakazawa and Uchikoshi handle the game itself, you need to approach it with open mind very much just to accept the premise. Anyway, as for the release it was released for Europe back at August 31st, with both of USA and PC version coming later. Have fun if you've been interested with the anime and want to try the VN itself.
Once again back at this week we have big two announcements from Nekonyan, and those two were the projects that most people were been wanted to be localized. In regard of Nekonyan itself, I think so far they show that they'd eager to improve more in regard of the release so I would like to see more of them in the future, especially in regard of their two additional secrets announcement after Sanoba release. For now I just hope that they'll be able to handle the works himself seeing that they currently have to work on nine projects with three were working on and the other six (Including two big announcements and two secret projects) were in work, and hopefully the won't suffer the burnout too much because of too much projects.
For the first announcement itself, it was Hello Lady in which it's one of the VN that I've been interested into as GPPC fan, mainly because of the seyuu themselves like I said before lol. Although if one want to see it from the VN itself, it was a chuuni VN which told the story about Narita who is quite capable transferred onto the high class school and managed to become the member of student council which mostly comprised girls (Eroge and all). Of course seeing that Narita himself is quite capable and badass, naturally he'd have dark past which cause him to have one goal in his mind and it was revenge. Almost forget that we also have some sort of special ability seeing that it's chuuni VN and all, so we'll see more action just like back at Comyu (Same developer). For unrelated notes here, from what I saw usually the MC from Akabei Soft and it's branch (Including Hello Lady developer Akatsuki Works) were quite capable and well developed, so once again if one want capable MC then Hello Lady should be good enough.
As we know, their second announcement is Aokana in which it did go through drama road before finally saw the chance to be localized here. Before the announcement, most of the people were correctly predict that it'll be localized by Nekonyan seeing that Sprite already tweet that it'll be localized overseas, although their wording is questionable though (Overseas transplant) so I'm worried that SG might get this. For the drama, it's interesting to mention that both Ren and Astro did work together, and it's quite unfortunate that they didn't managed to finish the project properly because of the discord that happened, so much that the project was cursed. Enough about the past and let's try to talk about the premise, in which we'll gonna have the heroines will do Flying Circus (FC) with magical girl like tight body suit along with MC as the retired FC athlete did the coaching. The FC itself did have enough detail for a fictional sport, so perhaps Japan can make an exhibition match for that at Olympic 2020 later lol. Seeing that the girl was look like a magical girl in their suit, I'll look forward to the release.
For the release plan of those two Nekonyan announcements, they said that they'll launch it at Q2 2019 later with Hello Lady first and after that Aokana at summer later, which is quite fitting flr the latter case seeing that Aokana time setting was in summer. Also they plan to release it a console port version and they'll add 18+ patch for the releases, which is not a big deal more than it sounds because both announcements did have low sexual content and I'm sure that there's no problem if they cut the sex scenes. They also work together with Hikari Field, in which if we remember was responsible with Tayutama 2 infamous translation, so Nekonyan here may have license Tayutama in the future.
That's all that I can write for now, and see you next week.
PS - I'd just realize that I forgot to write about Sol Press announcement (Daresora), so I'll write about that at next VNTS Review.

Here are pictures of all of my physical visual novels.
Some of these I have already done a review of while the others are planned to at some point get a review once I have read them.
There are also going to be more visual novels added here in the future. For instance have I backed physical tier of kickstarter for Island, Momoiro Closet and Newrin as well as having pre ordered the complete box for Grisaia.
 
 
Some of my english visual novels

More of my english visual novels

 
Grisaia complete box

Aokana

Nekopara vol 4 and Sengoku Rance

 
My english visual novels with nsfw cover
English Console VNs

Japanese visual novels for PC

More japanese visual novels for PC

Some more japanese physicals, some of them have NSFW box
My japanese visual novels for PS Vita

My japanese visual novels for PS3 and PS4