AustriaVNFan

The Muv-Luv series
Root Double
The Grisaia Series
Komyu
G-senjou no Maou
 

Yesterday I finished reading Grisaia no Kajitsu / Fruit of Grisaia. And while I still have no idea what Grisaia means (?) this was a truly awesome read. There were so many things done well in this VN that it's hard to count them all.
Let's start off with the main character. Although he did have his flaws Yuuji was definitely the most entertaining MC I have had so far. I really liked how he did try to act on things immediately that bothered him. He wouldn't remain passive until someone else solved his problems for him. I loved how he he did not start stuttering as soon as a girl spoke to him and how he could handle them quite well without being a macho. Although I did find his reactions pretty rude in the beginning, after a while you start accepting the MC the way he is and it even makes sense when you progress further into the game. I also really liked his attitude towards sex and relationships, I could very well identify with that. Even to a degree that for the first time in a VN I wondered how those H-scenes actually played out - especially in Sacchis route (since I was playing the censored Steam version). But in the end it's not really bothering me. So - great MC!
Then there is the girls: they are a really funny mix of totally different characters. The common route does an awesome job in making you acquainted with their habits and flaws. I remember the first dialogue between Yuuji and Michiru and how I thought 'WTF what kind of conversation is this supposed to be?'. Hard to believe that in the end I even got used to these conversations and actually even liked and enjoyed them. The common route is pretty long and just when I thought it dragged on for a bit too long the heroines routes finally started. Until then it's a lot of SoL stuff with many dirty jokes and other funny stuff. But in the heroines routes the game really starts to shine IMO (although there are many people out there who think the other way round). I gave this VN a final rating of 9.6 and will below name the reasons why I deducted those minimal points.
Also what made this VN so awesome was that there was no bad, stupid or boring route. Even the girls that I did like the least and where I thought they could never sensibly match with the MC had great routes and in the end I really liked all the girls nearly equally (because after their stories their behavior suddenly made sense). Well done on a novel where none of the heroines feel neglected or have a lackluster story!
I will now write a bit more about the individual heroines routes: Since there are spoilers I will make that section hidden.
So as you can see I am really happy I started the Grisaia series. And of course I will now continue with Grisaia no Meikyuu which I have already bought in another Steam offer. Looking forward to it!

Yesterday I finished reading Grisaia no Kajitsu / Fruit of Grisaia. And while I still have no idea what Grisaia means (?) this was a truly awesome read. There were so many things done well in this VN that it's hard to count them all.
Let's start off with the main character. Although he did have his flaws Yuuji was definitely the most entertaining MC I have had so far. I really liked how he did try to act on things immediately that bothered him. He wouldn't remain passive until someone else solved his problems for him. I loved how he he did not start stuttering as soon as a girl spoke to him and how he could handle them quite well without being a macho. Although I did find his reactions pretty rude in the beginning, after a while you start accepting the MC the way he is and it even makes sense when you progress further into the game. I also really liked his attitude towards sex and relationships, I could very well identify with that. Even to a degree that for the first time in a VN I wondered how those H-scenes actually played out - especially in Sacchis route (since I was playing the censored Steam version). But in the end it's not really bothering me. So - great MC!
Then there is the girls: they are a really funny mix of totally different characters. The common route does an awesome job in making you acquainted with their habits and flaws. I remember the first dialogue between Yuuji and Michiru and how I thought 'WTF what kind of conversation is this supposed to be?'. Hard to believe that in the end I even got used to these conversations and actually even liked and enjoyed them. The common route is pretty long and just when I thought it dragged on for a bit too long the heroines routes finally started. Until then it's a lot of SoL stuff with many dirty jokes and other funny stuff. But in the heroines routes the game really starts to shine IMO (although there are many people out there who think the other way round). I gave this VN a final rating of 9.6 and will below name the reasons why I deducted those minimal points.
Also what made this VN so awesome was that there was no bad, stupid or boring route. Even the girls that I did like the least and where I thought they could never sensibly match with the MC had great routes and in the end I really liked all the girls nearly equally (because after their stories their behavior suddenly made sense). Well done on a novel where none of the heroines feel neglected or have a lackluster story!
I will now write a bit more about the individual heroines routes: Since there are spoilers I will make that section hidden.
So as you can see I am really happy I started the Grisaia series. And of course I will now continue with Grisaia no Meikyuu which I have already bought in another Steam offer. Looking forward to it!

Actually this thread gave me some insights that I see less often about Euphoria, because there is a sites out there that lot that people just put on a pedestal for it...
Fuwanovel is not a heavy traffic forum and she probably wanted a more personal response.
I don't see anything wrong in one person creating a topic for this.
Yeah, I know, she could have just searched for it but still... I might not be here on fuwa for such a long time, but that's my honest opinion.
 
Because after all, the Forums are here to discuss, isn't it? It barely has new threads anyway...

I am very much with Nandemonai here. Even if I blot out all the h scenes I simply cannot find much sense in the story. And the fact that the true route made all others more or less obsolete just added to the frustration. Many disgusting h scenes + an utterly senseless story makes this my worst VN reading experience so far.

For episode 14, we talked about Endings in Visual Novels with well known community member and Umineko Fanatic, /u/ctom42 from /r/visualnovels! 
YouTube link:
Blog Link:
http://thebroadcast.club/2019/05/27/episode-14-endings/
We did our best through this episode to avoid spoilers, despite the spoiler heavy nature of the topic at hand. We don't mention any explicit details about the endings of any VNs on the discussed list. That said, depending on where you personally draw the spoiler line, I don't think everyone will consider it 100% spoiler free, but anything we mention is something that I've seen talked about openly in other venues of discussion about VNs.
We are also pleased to say that future episodes should have much less time between them! Real life got in the way more than a little bit for the last few episodes we put out, but now that we are all located in the same country once again, our scheduling should be much less painful, so look for more episodes to come in the future, sooner rather than later!
As always, comments are very welcome!
--------------
Also, if you're interested in being featured in our shill segment, my bank of shills is currently empty, so if you would like to have your shill in a future episode, please record a 2-3 minute segment promoting a VN you're excited about. It should be something we haven't had featured before, so ask if you're unsure what that might be! Feel free to contact me via DMs or Discord if interested.
Make sure to follow us on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/VNBroadcastClub
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Some discussion questions:
Do you think an ending can make or break a visual novel? What sorts of endings do you want to see more of in visual novels? If you could rewrite an ending to a specific visual novel, how would you change it? (Don't forget the spoiler tags please!)

1) The 'forced' h scenes. And I don't mean scenes where girls are forced to have sex but ones that feel forced and are obiously only there so that the fappers don't lose interest. They are always so story-breaking. The scenes often happen out of nowhere and after it no one mentions it again.
2) Childhood friends: for some reason I don't like childhood friends routes. Probably because the MC is often so incredibly dumb about not realizing the feelings OR because the childhood friend girls are always so nosey and annoying.
3) When extremely obvious questions are not asked! Example (Muv-Luv Extra):
4) All girls falling in love with a loser MC for no reason.

Hello and welcome to our forums.
It's always a good idea to create a VNDB profile and link it here on the forums so that people know what you have read and what not. It's easier to recommend others VNs like that.
Enjoy!

Welcome to our little community! I hope you will enjoy your time here on the forums

I'll post from the perspective of someone who has had a hand in coming up with multiple localized titles now.
For most English VN readers, all Japanese titles sort of run together, since they can't understand them anyway. From a marketing standpoint, translating a title will make it more identifiable and memorable. The catchier it is and the more it pops, the better. "Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome" is a phenomenal title for this reason. The flipside of this, though, is that there ARE a lot of games that are talked about in the English community using their Japanese names, so there is some justification for keeping those (or parts of them). As much as I hate the "When They Cry" title translations, it makes marketing sense to at least keep "Higurashi" and "Umineko," since everyone and their mothers have been talking about those games using those words for years. Though I'll maintain that using "When They Cry" for the individual games' titles is still confusing and misleading (I seriously thought "Higurashi: When They Cry" was for a sappy drama when I first saw the title. For months.). It was meant to be the overall series name, not the individual game titles!
Anyway, the result is that companies now like mashing Japanese and English together so they can reap the benefits of both. I'm not really sure how to feel about this (I say, as the editor for "Senren Banka: A Thousand Colors of Love"). People's minds are generally trained to ignore or forget subtitles, and having to relegate the English to a subtitle makes creating a memorable title much more challenging. But I also understand and accept the need for preserving some of the Japanese titles when working with well-known VNs. Just gotta make the best out of the situation. When working with lesser-known VNs, though, I'm all for ditching the Japanese entirely. Nobody knew what an "Otoboku" was in 2012, and the first time the vast majority of the English VN community heard of Yotsunoha was when Sol Press announced it (let alone the broader VN-buying market). It doesn't make any sense to me to keep the Japanese aspects of these titles.
From the perspective of a fan, I really enjoy fully localized titles. When titles go untranslated (very common in fan translations), they're a thing the Japanese audience gets to enjoy, but the English audience doesn't. A good title doesn't just catch the eye; they're a big part of a work of fiction's overall aesthetic, and they set the reader's expectations and often influences the way they view the work they're reading. It feels sad sometimes not knowing what the title is for a thing I'm reading, and I very much appreciate whenever a company (or fan translator) puts in the effort to make a good localized title.

On the topic of harem titles:
Harem, by their very definition, involve multiple people. Due to the traditional standards of romance, polygamy is not often in the cards outside of outright sex stuff (much to my dismay). This would mean that any title that pursues the avenue of multiple romantic interests will have to either choose one, changing genres and killing some of the audience, or never come to a resolution.
These are the kind of titles that can only live off the premise, and they will end should it be resolved.* That is why I believe that titles that can somehow find a way to continue after breaking through this limitation (without introducing a new such hook and limitation) are best. That, or titles that are never inconvenienced by such limitations, like the slice-of-life genre.
However, despite these obvious limitations, harem titles and their ilk are by far the most popular. Teasing with only minor pay-off (a kiss after three seasons that gets misunderstood and reverts back into the status quo) does wonders at keeping people addicted. It also often happens that harem titles are somewhat sexual in nature, skipping over the romance in the process. This is, of course, to offer some stimulation and pay-off even without needing to commit to any one person, and maintaining the hook and status quo for as long as there's money in the business.
There is also something to be said about multiple girls being interested in the same person providing a great scenario for all sorts of drama and 'best girl' moments and competitions. Anime such as Nisekoi made they living by giving everyone a chance to be best girl and Re:Zero has the famous debate over Rem and Emilia. A lot of wonderful scenarios can be concocted by having multiple romantic interests, but it is usually not in the makers' best interests to let the hook end and reach a conclusion.
 
Visual Novel's inherent advantage is that they CAN choose everyone, and they don't even need to make it a polygamous relationship. Multiple paths enable these possibilities that are mostly shut-off to the other mediums. The thing with VNs is, as a PC game in Japan, they usually need porn in order to sell, as it's the one thing they have over mobile and consoles, which are far more popular in Japan.
So the reason VNs do well on the romantic front is two-fold:
They can establish hooks like anime and manga, but since VNs are necessarily finite in length, they cannot let the hook carry them indefinitely and will need to commit. Thankfully, it is easy to pull that off with VNs, as they can offer multiple paths, dedicating to everyone a full path of sole romance. As a PC game, they tend to press their one advantage: sex. This usually brings along with it a plethora of other romantic shenanigans in order to provide context.  
*For example, the other day I saw a manga where the entire premise was that the romantic interest is a huge tsundere that is only true to herself... when she becomes a ghost, as she has the power to do so at any point. What she doesn't know is that the protagonist can see her. The whole story is around the protagonist pretending he can't see her whilst she goes super dere-dere all over him in ghost form.
A reader will spend the entire time hoping that the two get together, but it is plain to see that there's nothing to the manga outside of this tease and premise.
 
On the topic of manga:
Shoujo can include sex as something that happens off-screen, assuming it happens at all. Where sex happens more often is in smut titles, and those would generally be considered josei more than shoujo. The reason why shoujo include sex more often is because when seinen and/or shounen do it, the titles are usually just hentai by that point. That is to say, seinen and shounen tend to be more extreme, leading to borderline-h titles that you're likely not interested in, whereas shoujo scarcely ever goes this far, instead becoming a form of smut and josei you're also not interested in by that point.
So the question becomes: "Why is there a clearer separation between all-ages and 18+ for male stuff than there is for female stuff?"
I would theorise that that would be because porn is more widely spread as a thing among the teenage male population than among the teenage female one, and that would mean that including light stuff in shounen and the like is not as much of a selling point as it would be to the teenage female audience.
So, when you say that shoujo manga has more romance stuff, I reply with
Girls are believed to have more interest in romantic matters where as boys are believed to prefer more raunchy stuff. It follows that stories aimed at girls more often include romantic things that boys'. This includes very romantic and non-explicit sex scenes, the exact opposite of what you find in seinen and some shounen stuff. More popular shounen usually have a harem than shoujo stuff, which impedes romance severely (shoujo have love triangles, which are their own kind of hell, but don't sabotage romantic interactions as much as a harem intentionally does). Shoujo plotlines traditionally follow a girl falling for a guy who's nice (or mean) to them once, and tend to involve more one-on-one and romantic interactions, whereas shounen doesn't usually even focus on romance to begin with, unless it's a harem. The reason why this is is because plotlines where a guy falls head-over-heels with a girl and is led around by the nose aren't as popular as the shoujo versions.  
In the end, then, why is it that the titles are usually at one extreme or the other: Full-on hentai VS endless harem/romance with scarcely a bit of progress in sight.
The reasons are all spread out throughout what I've mentioned previously. Romantic titles tend to garner more interest by placing a hook or dramatic situation that, if resolved, would either end the story or cause a sharp decrease in interest. This is the reason why romance anime and some romance manga tend to be long and inconclusive. If progress is made, it'll usually be towards the end. They use these methods because they air/publish continuously, whereas VNs are single titles with a set beginning and end.
It is not that there are no titles with proper romantic progression over the course of the story: consider these two lists I made (that are now rather outdated, as I've come across many more).
It's just that the popular ones aren't usually these. They're the others. Because of their hooks and more continuous nature. The more romantic titles will always, due to the absence of strong hooks and drama, be less popular, despite offering more romantic progression.
The reason why all-ages stuff doesn't tend to include sex or intimate nudity is that it is a very large jump to make. You'd be jumping from something that can be sold everywhere to something that's have more limited sections to be sold in, and that is simply not a worthwhile sacrifice to make unless you're going for full-on porn.
 

Yes, it's simply too hard for many of them to bother giving it any real attention. Japanese people do learn English from an early age in school, but because of the factors I mentioned above, they rarely actually learn much from these lessons. The people who are quite skilled at English probably learned most of it from the internet and self study.
 
I think religion is more of a cultural thing than an actual sign of faith in Japan. I can only speak from personal experiences and from the information I know from my friends and what not, but it seems like most people go to shrines and temples more because it's a social and cultural "norm" instead of strong faith. That being said, it does seem to be important to them. At least from what I've seen, people act very respectful towards shrines and temples, and many do go there to pray fairly often. Though, once again, I think this type of prayer is more of a cultural thing than actual faith, but nonetheless, it's fairly important to Japanese people from my knowledge.
As far was what the most common religions are, I believe shintoism, the native Japanese "religion", (which is more of a collective term than an actual singular religion,) and buddhism are the two most widespread religions in Japan. There are quite a lot of buddhist temples, and as well as shrines for shintoism around in Japan. Christian churches etc are far fewer in number, though there are some of those too. Most native Japanese people will go to either a local shrine or temple for holidays and what not.

ChuSinGura 46+1 is an interesting kinetic novel although it is pretty long - too long for 'in between'

Ahh, thank you so much for your detailed answer! It seems to be even worse than what I thought. It is amazing that their English is that bad when they should learn that language in school. But I guess that also comes from the huge difference of how the languages work. I mean, I have been learning (on myself) Japanese for 2 years now and even though I have the Kanji and Kana down now it is still such a difficult language to me. With a lot of stuttering I guess I might have a simple conversation now, but not much else.

Well, there is one more topic I am interested in, sorry I didn't ask before. That topic would be religion. Not that I am particularly interested in that topic per se, but I am still confused about the many temples and religious group in Japan. Many temples seem to be Buddhist, there also seems to be Konfuzianism and also some Christians and even nature religion(?). How is that really? Did you make any experiences? How important does religion seem for the Japanese?
Thank you in advance

If you're traveling in big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, people in service occupations will generally know enough English that you'll get by just fine as a tourist. But, the normal level of English among people outside service occupations is quite frankly atrocious. Their knowledge of the language is limited to being able to say their name, "sorry", "thank you" and hello. That's pretty much it. But, if you're worried about booking hotels and what not, you shouldn't be. At least major hotels in large cities have staff that speaks English quite well. Restaurants too, depending on where you're eating. And you can ofc just point at the menu when ordering, and making a reservation isn't that hard if you go in person.
If you plan on living in Japan, though, not knowing any Japanese will definitely mean you'll have a hard time, as most people simply don't know much English. Tourists will generally manage, as they aren't staying for too long, and tend to stick with popular tourist attractions where people are used to foreigners, but... yeah, the general level is terrible. So, if you're going for something other than tourism, learn at least some basic Japanese. Trust me, you'll need it.
 
Every Japanese friend I have says the same thing. "I want to get better at English, but..."
It's very hard for them, for a number of reasons. To just list a few: bad teachers, an overall bad approach to learning the language from schools in general, and a lack of motivation due to the difficulty both from teachers and students.
Reminds me of this one time I was having lunch with some friends at uni, and I asked them what they could say in English. One girl at the table thought hard about it for a good 5 seconds, then said "this is... a apple!"' それだけWW (That's it, lol) I did not have it in me to correct her "a" to "an", lol.
She later also seemed to remember how to say "my name is Shiho", but yeah, you get the idea, lol.

Since you seem not to have read it I think this sage would fit quite well what you are looking for:
Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative
It is (at least the Steam version, not sure if there is a patch) not 18+ but everything else is pretty much what you want. The romance - even though not the main theme later on - is pretty well done and I have never grown as attached to the heroines as in these games. Just read through Muv-Luv Extra (the first part). There is not so much of a plot going on there, but I still think it's important to read it to really get involved in the whole story and it's still sweet.
Yes, that one. I can second that. It will probably fit your requirements as well
 
I would not say this VN has strong romance. If romance is an important part for you you will probably be disappointed. But - no doubt about that - the story is good and the villains beautifully evil!
additionally I might add:
G-enjou no Maou: has an intriguing plot and when the MC finally gets over his 'sucker phase' the romance is quite nice.

Well, I think the reason why this started is this one word:
 

And if you are objective about it (@Stormwolf) you must admit that this word might seem a provocation to many. Because there is simply a clear difference between a pedophile (who usually sexually harasses younger people against their will) and a mutual relationship between an older and a younger person who happened to fall in love.
 
I think this is the message that you actually wanted to get across and that makes the game uninteresting for you and I think no one would have any objections to that.

Hi guys! I want to say that I'm very glad i found this site.
I'm starting a project, which is to port P/A Potential Ability by Empress/Sei Shoujo (for me this guy is the best illustrator for visuals) to Ren'py.
I need some help from you guys for this project to happen!   >.<
I'm currently extracting all data needed.

Ahh, the only VN I have stalled halfway in so far because I started it in Japanese when my proficiency of that language was still too bad. I will surely buy this and reread it.
hmm, as I wrote above I got through the game about halfway. I would seriously disagree on calling this pedocrap. There is only one heroine under age and the game goes about this topic pretty seriously and there seems to be a strong conflict goin on in the MCs mind about that fact. I haven't finished her route so I don't know how it turns out in the end but it is far from 'loli H scene crap'.

Honestly, I can see nothing wrong with VNDB: I find it a truly amazing site and hard to believe that so many VNs are covered in an easy to look up way. There are so many trash VNs out there that I surely would have given up on VNs if not for that site. Since I don't use VNDB on mobile devices there is not a single thing I can complain about. I hope the site continues to exist as long as I read VNs
And if you are really not sure about the rating of a VN try the VNDB profiles of Fuwa members like Clephas said and see how they rated it. I do that a lot to get an even better idea!

No, I've never reread a VN fully. I just revisit my favourite parts.
A lot of the description in a VN that helps immerse you in your first play, becomes extra baggage when you go to play the VN again. If the VN is pretty concise in this aspect then you can still play it again. Another way is by waiting many years before replaying the VN. After 4 years, I noticed my impression changes quite a bit (Current impression is different from how I pictured from memories.)
Basically, I think you reread stuff to check details, or if the work is layered enough so that your impressions will differ and justify a second playthrough.
 

I'm close to finishing rereading VA-11 HALL-A. While thinking about a few storytelling tropes that tend to annoy me in VNs I remembered how clever it was at avoiding them. Which I wasn't even aware of the time I first read it as it was one of the first VNs I played. So I thought it would be interesting to check it out again after having become more genre-aware. I might like it even more now than I did before.
Other than that I have only reread titles with major gameplay elements like the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series so far.

Ekhemmm...
As for me - I did read Princess Evangile twice - second time it was to check out All-ages version. I loved it, and whole experience was like coming home, or meeting old friends again.
Some day I may revisit it again. And I think that I actually prefer all-ages version. I absolutely loved "morning/cuddling after" CGs for Chiho and Ayaka that were added in this version.
 
I also read Kotori's route in Konosora twice - when I played the game for the first time, I dropped it at Ageha's route, waiting for retranslation, so when the patch came out I read whole thing again. I enjoyed it all the same (or even more because of better TL ). I actually plan to read Konosora for the third time, but this time it will be Japanese all ages version - Cruise Sign.

I read Danganronpa 2 twice, otherwise no I don't really reread VNs. However what I do is rewatching scenes on YouTube. 

And I plan on rereading G Senjou No Maou with the voice patch.

yes, several vns i have done this for. in fact, im currently re-reading kamidori alchemy meister from the very beginning again when i should be reading something from my massive backlog.