Clephas

Hinaori Kagome from Comyu or Donoko from Uruwashi no. Kagome is easily my favorite heroine of all time and I honestly think I could love that amoral woman without reservation. Donoko is the first heroine I ever wanted to 'save' in a game. I'd love to shower her with love, if she was able to return it. Unfortunately, in both cases I think the girls wouldn't want anything to do with me, lol.

Tbh, most VNs wouldn't make good anime... the best you get would get out of most of them is a Shuffle or DC clone, or maybe something like Toradora. I can name a number of VNs that have the possibility of escaping that fate, but I can guarantee you that they would be ruined anyway. If there is one thing that can be learned from what Studio Deen did to Tsukihime and FSN when it turned them into anime it is that sometimes it really isn't worth it. Tsukihime's anime dumbed down the Chaos fight (which was by far the best one in the VN) and made it a sideline rather than a defining moment (not to mention inserting random scenes from the other paths and making the plot needlessly confusing). FSN's anime combined random elements from the three paths and tacked on the Fate ending. Phantom's anime departed so far from the original concept that it transformed into a Noir clone with pseudo-mysticism randomly inserted mid-series and lost the gritty realism of the game in exchange for a more surreal progression of events (not to mention changing the Ein ending to deliver a pathetically random moral lesson).

http://www.zerochan.net/647016 This is Kokoro from Evolimit.

Geh, Aoiro Rinne... I hate the protagonist in that game. He irritates me on so many levels. At least Heliotrope's protagonist had some sort of redeeming value, but Aoiro Rinne's stays a hetare right to the end.

Eroge is a wide-ranging description for video games with an ero-element, and it can include ero-rpgs and the like as well as your average ero-VN. Dating sims are just that... the object of the game is not to get to know the characters or tell the story but to 'conquer' a female or male character in the romantic sense through strategic relationship building (often through minigames and the like). Galge is basically what they used to call moege or charage, where the story of the VN tends to take a backseat to relationship and character development, as well as cuteness and other such surface elements (always geared toward a male audience). An otome game is a general name for games geared toward a female audience with a female protagonist (it is fairly rare for an otome game to have cross-gender appeal, mostly because they have even more problems with ancient plot tropes than moege in mos cases). A yaoi game is a game where male/male romantic relationships are the norm, just as a yurige is one where a female/female relationship is the norm. An otoge is a game like Rockstar where matching the beat of the music is the basis for scoring. I could go on, but Japanese game terminology is so varied it isn't even funny.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a pessimist. I considered it as a possible project about two years ago and then decided it was impossible, if only because there was no possibility of finding enough translators capable of working with that text in the community to make it viable. For a similar reason, I also rejected Dies Irae and Devils Devel Concept (the latter because the protagonist's philosophical ravings would require a lot of very specific wording that I couldn't see most translators managing in English). I also considered Jingai Makyou but rejected it for a different reason... it's an acquired taste (story is a bit too weird for most people).

The main reasons why I say that Kokoro from Evolimit needed a route are:

That's kind of hard... most of the best quotes I can think of compose at least three lines, usually a statement, followed by a question, followed by an answer. Most of the best VN philosophy is the writer speaking through the characters, using the conversation to make the argument.

平常心 Level-headedness, presence of mind. It is also frequently used as a mantra to tell oneself to calm down when one is nervous (like before a job interview). Heijoushin wo tamotte! could be translated as 'please be calm!' for instance. Remember to post context when you ask for a translation, lol. A lot of these things have different meanings depending on context.

Dies Irae simply because that would be so cool, and Evolimit because it would be hilarious as well as awesome.

lol, I almost said something cruel unintentionally to that... but even if you learned enough Japanese to play the average VN, Muramasa - in fact most Nitroplus games - is probably going to be beyond your abilities. Jingai Makyou, Muramasa, Dies Irae, Vermillion Bind of Blood, and Kajiri Kamui are the top five hardest games to read I've played since I began to devour VNs in Japanese (note that three of those are from Light and two from Nitro+). This is not only because they are long but because they frequently use huge sentences, archaic phrasing, and/or complex wording that requires a very specific grasp of the grammar to decipher. In addition, Muramasa is made harder by the fact that - like all the truly great Nitroplus games - it is part utsuge. If you aren't ready for a constant stream of horrible occurrences with no relief or even signs of relief in sight, then you probably shouldn't play the game. The five greats of Nitroplus are: Demonbane - the first one -, Muramasa, Jingai Makyou, Phantom, and Saya no Uta, and all but Demonbane are near-utsuge or at least have ambivalent endings for the most part. If you want some Nitroplus action, I'd suggest playing Phantom, though I should warn you that the localized version is a DVD, non-ero game that has a horribly designed playing system that requires you to use codes to get back to key points of the game rather than a system of saves. The upside is that the game is fully-voiced in Japanese (save for the protagonist) including the narration of the story, and it is much better than the anime from a story standpoint (for one thing, what the main characters do during the story is entirely within human limits, rather than them being supermen without a weakness to kryptonite, and the endings aren't horrible).

lol, what's 4chan? But seriously, taking a bunch of permatrolls seriously is a waste of time and energy. Even if you are jaded you should make an effort to be a decent human being. I don't join major social networks, as a personal policy. My primary reasons are my belief that the human brain degenerates when it is exposed to large groups of people as opposed to conversations with a smaller group and my distaste for people who can't bring themselves to look at reality. Not only that, obsessing over other people's opinion of you - in the form of kudos, thumbs ups, etc. - has a lot of bad effects on an individual's mental health. Cynicism and constructive criticism are one thing, but being poisonous without making a legitimate point is a habit far too many people are into on the net.

This game is huge. I can't see it getting a translation any time soon, regardless of who does it. It took me three days of marathon playing to finish it, and I can finish most games in a single day of free time. Not only that, but the archaic Japanese utilized at many points would make it impossible for the average fantranslator.

Yeah, a lot of jrpgs would be considered to be chuuni, especially the ones of the PSX era, when protagonists began to take a more active role in the stories, encouraging players to see the games through their eyes. Chuuni essentially plays to young people's desires to be more than they are. It isn't a bad thing most of the time, but it is easy to lose your connection with reality at that age.

I've played hundreds of VNs, but I've yet to come across one that is similar to Wanko except on the surface. Many have similar elements but none try to do what that game did.

I wasn't bashing, I was saying that since he already knew about vndb, he should have searched for it using the tags first. Common sense where tags are available. Unlike a blog site, where even with tags, searching is frequently a pain in the butt, vndb is highly organized (as long as people bothered to mark the VNs with the tags) and easy to search. There aren't that many sites that are as intuitive as vndb to search. If he had asked 'is there a VN that you have played with a bodyguard protagonist that you could recommend to me?' I wouldn't have felt a need to say any of that. In that case, I could have given a list and reasons why certain ones are worth the effort to play (Akatsuki no Goei, Noel) and others are lumps of dog dung (Angelguard). List of ones that really are worth playing (incidentally, Yuuji in Grisaia isn't a bodyguard, really): Akatsuki no Goei series Noel (if you don't mind a really gory yuri game with really dark tones) Para-Sol (like most of the games from this company, it's a very weird game, but it is also good) Unival (lots of hilarity, but no better than decent story-wise) If you just want games with action that aren't complete fantasy or excuses for rapefests (there are more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head): Sinclient (pretty good espionage/Illuminati) Izuna Zanshinken (protagonist is a vigilante killer working for a yakuza family) My personal pet peeve in action VNs is for games where the main character is basically a helpless idiot, so I can assure you that none of these games are that type.

If it is a localized version of a VN I prefer to have the Japanese voices with English text (though I prefer to play the Japanese versions over localized versions). My main reason for this is quite simple: English dubs are so hit and miss in comparison to the more stable Japanese voices that it isn't even right to compare them. Of course, Japanese VAs have their crap moments - in particular the excess of high-pitched voices in cute girls - but English dubs still have a bad habit of being either awkward, awful, or both. A lot of this is because Japanese just doesn't translate well into spoken English. The struggle to balance translation with speakable English tends to create abominations that offend everyone, rather than just one side of things. Worse is the bad habit - illustrated by such infamous characters as Welch from Star Ocean 4 - of voice directors to want to imitate or surpass the high-pitched voices of the Japanese version. To be blunt, a lot of those characters voices grate so badly I feel like I'm listening to fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. For lower-pitched voices, there are good English VAs... the only problem is that good VAs cost money and money is what localization studios don't have for VN or anime localizations. They cut corner after corner, until the result becomes something that just isn't quite right. Good dubs are so rare that I have almost never encountered them, and most of the ones I encountered were - quite ironically - before the professional English voice-acting community was well-established, rather than after. As an example of a series that was hurt badly by dubbing: Code Geass. The anime was not nearly as good in dubs as it was in Japanese. The melodrama of the anime was one of its biggest draws, and they somehow managed to ruin that in a lot of the key scenes. I gave up watching dubs for anime altogether after that...

There is a bodyguard protagonist tag on vndb. Search it in the tags section, then click on it, after which you can reorganize the list by date of release, popularity, or ratings. Rather than asking this kind of question here, it's best to go looking for the answer yourself.

There are plenty of people who never get into the chuuni genre. The main reason I like it is because violent melodrama is just fun to watch for me. Basically, it's a matter of the degree to which your imagination is developed and whether you have the ability to suspend disbelief for the time it takes to enjoy it. Plenty of people - even anime fans - quite simply can't suspend disbelief when it comes to fantasy crap after a certain age. The earlier you reach that stage, the lower the possibility you'll have interest in the genre later on in life. I mean, if you are the type that can still get into Star Wars and its mythology as an adult, you'll probably love chuuni anime and games, simply because it is the same kind of junk food (unless you are the type that despises attempts to make animation as a medium into something 'serious'). I grew up with anime and video games and went through that transition stage in which the stuff I enjoyed only months before suddenly became embarrassing... and then came out the other end a few years later with the realization I still loved the stuff. I simply had a different attitude about it and had gotten over my megalomania. If you lose interest early on, there is very little reason why you would enjoy the genre later, lol.

Perhaps one of the weirdest niche genres in VNs and anime is that characterized by the reference to 'chuunibyou' the self-obsession and sudden surge of egotism that occurs in teenagers around the ages of 14-16, where they tend to develop an overblown sense of and desire for their own importance. This genre is generally characterized by one thing overall... melodrama. Main characters in chuuni games and anime resurrect from the dead, become powerful overnight, and are inevitably somehow 'special'. Now, the reason why this genre tends to be avoided by a lot of people is this... it is a genre that is most enjoyed by the two main types of people who enjoy it - those who take this kind of thing seriously, and those who know how to sit back and 'enjoy the show' without being embarrassed about the fact they like it. Extreme examples of chuuni include Code Geass for anime and Dies Irae for VNs. In these games, characters ruminate on their own personal philosophies and frequently pursue extreme courses of action for reasons that are frequently abnormal or just plain psychotic, appealing to the tastes of those who enjoy that kind of thing. Oddly enough, both Code Geass and Dies Irae are only one extreme of the genre. More 'youthful' versions include mahou shoujo crap like the infamous Sailor Moon, and a more recognizable type would be certain Gundam series (Wing, Seed, and 00 to differing extents). Wordiness, long explanations as to motivations, and a seeming inability to get to business without some kind of side drama are all signs of 'chuuni' entertainment. For those who are classic anime fans, Dragonball Z is one of the most famous examples of the genre. Now, perhaps the most problematic aspect of this genre is the fact that after a certain age, people tend to start feeling embarrassed about the fact they like this type of entertainment. This is a natural reaction, as after a time we inevitably outgrow the delusions of our youth, that we might obtain superpowers or that we have somehow come to understand a reality others haven't already... so the question comes, just why do some people fail to stop enjoying the genre after that stage? The answer to the question is fairly simple... you learn to simply enjoy it for what it is, taking pleasure in the sheer unreality of it and the suspension of disbelief involved in enjoying such material. Once you can do that, don't be surprised if you start finding real value amongst the glittering fool's gold that litters the genre. The genre tends to attract writers who want to express themselves in ways other genres don't allow or would consider to be absurd. Further, there is no other genre where one can pursue philosophy as a pleasure rather than as a boring, dusty academic exercise. Chuuni tends to use philosophical themes in a rather blunt manner, and it isn't uncommon to find that a writer has actually managed to create a unique and interesting thought exercise in the process of entertaining you. Chuuni is a genre where the absurd is normal and where concepts we would laugh off in real life are pursued with a seriousness that would seem absurd to the uninitiated. In other words... it's an acquired taste for those of us who have somehow managed to become adults, lol. Edit: Star Wars is a rather familiar example of the US's own 'chuuni' culture, hahaha

Kokoro from Evolimit and Rusalka from Dies Irae (besides the obvious ones like Ilyasviel from FSN).

Like I said, this game actually does have good writing and escapes being a normal nukige by having a good set of characters as well. If I had to compare it to something in terms of its balance, maybe Sarasarasara? The only serious downside is that this game has a lot of focus on the characters' llibido, but it manages to do so without it becoming completely absurd. The great weakness of a nukige is that it literally only exists to give you an excuse to masturbate, but this is more like a moege with a nukige's amount of h-scenes.

It's halfway a nukige, halfway a moege. It is saved by actually having a decent premise and good writing, but it does have a lot of h-scenes.

There is very little a VN can do that cannot be done in another video game genre - though most gamers would not even consider VNs to be games at all. However, if there is one advantage VNs have that no other medium currently existing has... it is the greater leeway some companies give to their writers (outside of moege and nukige) thus allowing them to create stories that would not be allowed in other mediums either because they don't have much mainstream appeal, are socially unacceptable on one level or another, or take on issues no one wants to admit exist. It's precisely because the medium isn't taken seriously that it can get away with all of this, which is one of the ironic aspects of it. Akatsuki Works games, for instance, always have a philosophical theme that they frequently approach from a point of view that would be considered cynical or anti-social, and they do it in a way that would most likely never have been allowed in another medium. To be blunt, this is just my personal view of the value of VNs... most people probably wouldn't agree. Understand, I mean that amongst the 'visual' mediums (anime, movies, tv shows, video games, manga) in Japan, VNs are the most likely to do something with a story that none of the others would even consider otherwise. Anime series like Fate/Zero would never have been allowed in such an unadulterated form if FSN and Tsukihime hadn't 'gone there' and proven there was a demand for such works even in the current age of moeblob and brainlessness. PS: Japanese paper novels are my other passion, for similar reasons. Where Americans have stagnated, there are still some seriously good new insights there.

Dies Irae, Kajiri Kamui, Vermillion - bind of blood, Zero- Devil of Maxwell, Jingai Makyou, Devils Devel Concept, Comyu, Yurikago yori Tenshi Made, Ayakashibito, Bullet Butlers, Evolimit, Tokyo Babel, Shinigami no Testament, Ikusa Megami Zero and Verita... Also, if you don't like G-Senjou no Maou's story structure, don't play Eustia. Good high fantasy series (the elves and all that) are rare. Most of that type are plain moege with no decent fighting, are lame, or are nukige/rapegames...