Chronopolis

Had a long day? Then I have just the thing! Adorable and heart-melting MOE!

Introduction:
 
When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
-what knowing skills in the area are good for
-how you might study them
-how much you'll need to start reading.
I'll also give some related tips.
 
The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
 
This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
 
------------------
 
1. Vocab
 
Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
-About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
-By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
-~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
 
Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
-I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
 
Vocab Lists:
There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
 
Regarding English definitions:
Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
 
2. Grammar Skills
 
With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
-Required to be able to play VN's
 
With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
 
N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
 
N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
 
Expressions not covered in JLPT
There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと！？ Xってなんだ？　ですって！？　～てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
 
Imabi for grammar
You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
 
3. Basic Parsing Skill
 
Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
-(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
-you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
 
4. Kanji Skill:
 
Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
-not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
 
Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝（あさ）　and　朝食（ちょうしょく）　use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
-moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
 
The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
-helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
-don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
 
Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
-suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
-helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
-helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
 
 
 
One last topic...
 
On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
 
------------------
 
Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.

There’s no getting around it. If you’re looking to edit visual novels, at some point you’re going to have roll up your sleeves, put on the rubber gloves, and get elbow-deep in some H. The good news is that if you come prepared, practice your technique, and set some clear boundaries, it can be a pleasurable experience for both you and the reader.

First, a disclaimer: I don’t like pineapple on my pizza, and I don’t like H-scenes in my VNs. It’s not a prudish thing; it’s a narrative thing. They’re rarely well crafted — you can feel all the hallmarks of the B-team being brought in to write them — and they almost never add plot/characterization that couldn’t have been handled better some other way. (I’ll pause here so you can mention Amane’s route from Grisaia, an exception that helps prove the rule.) Let’s be honest: they’re shoehorned in to help sell product. It’s built into the economics of the eroge genre. And honestly, that’s fine. I try to be sanguine about it and think of H-scenes as banner ads or TV commercials. They’re profit centers that help support the content I’m actually interested in. (I suspect more than a few developers feel the same way.)

Long story short, H-scenes ain’t going anywhere. So how do we deal with them? Go in with a game plan.

[Warning, there will be some NSFW language from this point forward. Sorry! It’s all part of seeing how the sausage is made.]

1. Do your research
In raw translation, sex scenes from a Japanese visual novel tend to be far from erotic. More often than not, they read like an obsessively detailed transcript of a gynecological exam. That’s not because the Japanese writing team suddenly forgot they were supposed to be penning a passionate sex scene. It’s just that what’s erotic in one culture isn’t always as erotic in another. It’s your job (along with the translator) to help bridge that cultural divide and come up with something that feels faithful to the original, yet still sexy in English.

Your first stop? Research. Read some English-language erotica so you can get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. Sites like literotica.com even have stories broken out into fairly specific categories, so if you know you’ll be editing BDSM, threesome, and footjob scripts, you’ll have no problem finding what you need. (If you have all three in a single scene, you still might be in luck.) There’s also a category called “First Time,” which is more broadly useful, given how fixated many VNs are on virgins.

Read, read, and read some more. Pay attention to the verbs, the nouns, the pacing. Try to quickly form a model of what makes a sex scene successful, then look to carry those techniques over to your VN script.

2. Pack a box lunch
If you take nothing else away from this post, remember this: bring a big bag of dicks; you’ll need them. Better pack a few pussies while you’re at it.

By the time you’ve edited your third or fourth H-script, you’ll find you’ve run dry of good synonyms for the male and female genitalia. In KoiRizo, the raw script mostly used the word "thing" for the protag’s package, which ended up sounding childish and/or ambiguous in English. (I only kept it in a few instances where such a reaction might be appropriate — for example, when the route partner catches her very first glimpse of Lil’ Protag: “Is that your ... thing?”). The remainder of the original script was a mix of the clinical ("my mucous membrane”) and the hilarious (“my soiled meat stick”). As for ladyparts, the original script relied heavy on metaphor and indirect reference — lots of openings, entrances, gates, doors, depths, special places, overflowing pots of nectar, etc.

So what’s missing from the above? The common English erotica standbys: “dick” and “cock” for men, “pussy” for women. There’s a reason for that. KoiRizo complicated things by using the Japanese equivalents of these very sparingly, reserving them mainly for shock effect in dialogue — “e.g., OMG, she just said ‘cock!’ Things must be getting real.” Moreover, when these words were finally hauled out, the devs bleeped the VO and censored the text string (e.g., “p*ssy”). That meant it was very obvious when those words were being used and when they weren’t.

All of which presented quite a challenge to the team: if we were to preserve those “shocking” character moments, we couldn’t use the most common English terms 99% of the time. And so, I fell back on a shortlist of alternate references: pole, rod, erection, hard-on, manhood, etc. By the time I was done editing, however, this list felt far too limited; those words were overused pencils worn down to their nubs.

This is one of those areas where, in hindsight, I feel like I could have done a better job with KoiRizo. The takeaway: If I ever tackle a VN this H-heavy again — doubtful — I’ll come packing a much longer list of euphemisms.



3. Bring a raincoat
Compared to its English counterpart, Japanese erotica seems downright obsessed with fluids: saliva, vaginal secretions, semen, urine — you name it. The look, the sound, the feel, the taste, the smell, the volume. You’ll be describing a lot of liquids in a lot of ways, so get ready to break out the thesaurus. And an umbrella.

4. Embrace the improbable
Let’s admit it: VN sex is over-the-top ridiculous. In a matter of seconds, sheepish virgins turn into seasoned pornstars, cramming 20 orgasms and 40 positions into a quickie broom closet hookup. (Oh so much cramming.) This is the nature of the genre, so don’t fight it; embrace it. Trying to force realism onto a typical H-scene would be like trying to force realism onto a Dragon Ball Z fight: everyone still looks constipated, but no one’s having any fun. If you’re that desperate to edit sadly mundane sex scenes, wait for the VN version of Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs to come out. Till then, work with what you have.

I remember a tiny dustup a while back when another TL team supposedly wrote lubricant into an H-scene because they felt the acts described would be difficult or painful without it. It’s a minor thing, but if the original writer left the lube out, I’m inclined to do so too. These portions of the script are wish fulfillment at their best/worst, so just leave them be.

Except ...

5. Reject the impossible
... Except when the improbable becomes the impossible. More often than not, this is either the result of a mistranslation or an error by the original writers. (As an example of the latter, KoiRizo was haunted by an entity we dubbed “phantom Riho.” A couple of times, the devs would forget they were writing another girl’s scene and use Riho’s name for a line or two instead. We fixed this in our version, but still ...)

Anyway, as editor, it’s your job to keep an eye out for the impossible. Is the protag’s penis simultaneously in someone’s vagina, anus, mouth, and ear? Did the heroine’s hymen suddenly regenerate? (Starfish Girl is mah waifu!) Did a corded vibrator suddenly become a battery-operated one? Ask to have the TL double-checked and, if that still doesn’t resolve the issue, use your best judgement to fix the error while causing minimal disruption to the surrounding lines.

6. Set your limits
This is important. Know what you’re comfortable with going into a project and make those boundaries abundantly clear. Some VNs can venture into very unpleasant territory — rape, abuse, gore, catgirls, etc. — and it’s best to ask yourself up front if you could, in good conscience, commit to editing that sort of content. Set your limits early on, then make sure your team’s fully aware of them.

7. Have a sense of humor
At the end of the day, VNs are entertainment. Unless you’re editing Saya no Uta 2: Vom Harder, it’s probably okay to approach your H-scripts with a subtle sense of play. A decent chunk of your audience will either be fast-forwarding through these scenes outright, or paying far more attention to the visuals than the script.

So think of these times as exhibition games in your script editing schedule. They’re opportunities to spread your wings a little bit, try a few stylistic experiments — maybe even slip in a sly joke or two. And even if everything doesn’t quite work, we’ll still respect you in the morning.

Introduction:
 
When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
-what knowing skills in the area are good for
-how you might study them
-how much you'll need to start reading.
I'll also give some related tips.
 
The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
 
This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
 
------------------
 
1. Vocab
 
Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
-About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
-By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
-~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
 
Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
-I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
 
Vocab Lists:
There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
 
Regarding English definitions:
Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
 
2. Grammar Skills
 
With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
-Required to be able to play VN's
 
With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
 
N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
 
N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
 
Expressions not covered in JLPT
There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと！？ Xってなんだ？　ですって！？　～てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
 
Imabi for grammar
You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
 
3. Basic Parsing Skill
 
Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
-(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
-you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
 
4. Kanji Skill:
 
Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
-not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
 
Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝（あさ）　and　朝食（ちょうしょく）　use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
-moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
 
The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
-helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
-don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
 
Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
-suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
-helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
-helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
 
 
 
One last topic...
 
On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
 
------------------
 
Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.

Introduction:
 
When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
-what knowing skills in the area are good for
-how you might study them
-how much you'll need to start reading.
I'll also give some related tips.
 
The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
 
This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
 
------------------
 
1. Vocab
 
Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
-About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
-By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
-~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
 
Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
-I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
 
Vocab Lists:
There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
 
Regarding English definitions:
Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
 
2. Grammar Skills
 
With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
-Required to be able to play VN's
 
With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
 
N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
 
N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
 
Expressions not covered in JLPT
There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと！？ Xってなんだ？　ですって！？　～てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
 
Imabi for grammar
You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
 
3. Basic Parsing Skill
 
Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
-(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
-you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
 
4. Kanji Skill:
 
Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
-not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
 
Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝（あさ）　and　朝食（ちょうしょく）　use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
-moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
 
The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
-helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
-don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
 
Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
-suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
-helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
-helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
 
 
 
One last topic...
 
On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
 
------------------
 
Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.

Introduction:
 
When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
-what knowing skills in the area are good for
-how you might study them
-how much you'll need to start reading.
I'll also give some related tips.
 
The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
 
This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
 
------------------
 
1. Vocab
 
Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
-About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
-By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
-~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
 
Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
-I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
 
Vocab Lists:
There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
 
Regarding English definitions:
Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
 
2. Grammar Skills
 
With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
-Required to be able to play VN's
 
With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
 
N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
 
N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
 
Expressions not covered in JLPT
There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと！？ Xってなんだ？　ですって！？　～てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
 
Imabi for grammar
You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
 
3. Basic Parsing Skill
 
Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
-(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
-you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
 
4. Kanji Skill:
 
Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
-not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
 
Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝（あさ）　and　朝食（ちょうしょく）　use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
-moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
 
The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
-helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
-don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
 
Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
-suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
-helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
-helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
 
 
 
One last topic...
 
On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
 
------------------
 
Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.

Introduction:
 
When it comes to reading VN's in Japanese, required skills can be grouped into four areas: Vocab, grammar, basic parsing skill, and kanji skill. In this post, for each area I'm going to explain:
-what knowing skills in the area are good for
-how you might study them
-how much you'll need to start reading.
I'll also give some related tips.
 
The requirements mentioned below are a conservative estimate. I've known people who've jumped in to playing VN's with less or much less, but I'm giving a safe estimate. A level which at most people, without any special knack for learning languages through immersion, should be able to gain traction. If you learn this much before starting an easyish VN, the amount you are completely lost should be significantly less than the percentage you are able to pick up and improve from.
 
This is not a comprehensive how-to guide by any means. Just an informative post.
 
------------------
 
1. Vocab
 
Knowing enough vocab to study your grammar resource without being bogged down by vocab:
-About 30 verbs and 50 other words for Genki 1/ Tae kim Basic.
-By the time you get to Genki 2/Tae Kim Essential you'll want a good set of verbs (about 100), and maybe about 300 total vocabulary.
-~600 words about how much you'll want to be able to study N3 grammar without getting bogged down in vocab.
 
Having enough vocab to start your first VN:
-I recommend over 1000, but anywhere from 800-1300 is good. I remember trying Clannad with only 800, and I felt like ramming my head into a wall. It's also important to pick an easy title. It will still feel hard no matter what, but an easy title will be much more helpful and rewarding to play. You also must just translation aggregator and ITH. They are the reason why Visual Novels are the best medium for learning Japanese out of anime/books/movies/drama/etc.
 
Vocab Lists:
There's a dedicated verb list here: http://nihongoichiban.com/2012/08/13/list-of-all-verbs-for-the-jlpt-n4/
Verbs are helpful to learn, because they are often the most important part of the sentence AND you need to to have stuff to conjugate.
In general JLPT-based vocab list is here: http://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/jlpt5/vocab/
 
Regarding English definitions:
Be mentally open and flexible. If the english definition doesn't quite add up, don't try and think about it too hard. Focus instead on associating the word with the situations where you see it.
For example, you might be confused by the word 都合 and it's unhelpful definition J-E definition, but if you seen 都合がいい used in a situation where you know it means "is convenient for me" from context then remember that occurence. There might be (there are, in fact), other usages of the word 都合, but that doesn't hurt you in anyway. The next time you see 都合 you can pair it against this meaning and see if that makes any sense.
 
2. Grammar Skills
 
With N5+N4 grammar you will be barely able to start making your way through a VN. Without N4, you will have quite limited gains in the long term from reading visual novels. (Equivalent to Genki 1+2.)
-Required to be able to play VN's
 
With N3 grammar, everything will feel a lot clearer, the amount of grammar you'll understand will exceed 60%. (Equiv. to Intermediate approach to Integrated Japanese). Highly recommended to study this before or soon after you start your first VN.
 
N2 grammar further cuts the amount of unknown grammar you face in three.
 
N1 is kind of like a bonus that gives you a lot of uncommon or formal expressions. It's NOT comprehensive at all, in terms of covered all Japanese phrases. From my experience, some of the phrases you learn in here show up often in novels (ばかり、んばかり), others quite less. Good to know, though
 
Expressions not covered in JLPT
There are a lot of patterns and phrases not covered in JLPT that you will see in typical native reading material. Examples (社長に議長, phrases like なんだと！？ Xってなんだ？　ですって！？　～てくれないかな。 オレって、なんてバカなんだ ) Not to worry, many of them can be picked up as you go. For the rest, once you get settled into reading, you can start noting down those phrases you don't get and google them or ask other people.
 
Imabi for grammar
You can also try studying from http://www.imabi.net/. It's a phenomenal reference, it's just goes into tons of depth, too much. I think there's 2 or 3 times as much information there is covered by JLPT up to JLPT 1. As such it's going to be overwhelming for a beginner and is much better suited as a reference for intermediate or advanced learners.
 
3. Basic Parsing Skill
 
Knowing the different types of words (Covered by doing a vocab list of about 100 verbs, and then the JLPT 5 list. You also have to have done or be doing Tae Kim's Basic Guide, since he explains what na-adj's, i-adj's, and other word types are, etc.).
-(nouns, suru-verbs/nouns, verbs, na-adj's, i-adj's, adverbs, temporal adverbs)
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Knowing the basic sentence structure and how words can modify each other and fit in a sentence.: (adjectives modifying nouns, verbs).
The knowledge is covered by Tae Kim Basic + a mix of Essential Grammar and Genki 1/2. I personally find Tae Kim's explanation good even though the learning curve is steep and his lessons aren't good for review like Genki books are. He tries to convey to you the big picture.
-Required to be able to play VN's.
 
Being able to breakdown sentences and spot the different types of words based on their position.
-you can practice this by reading bits of text in your genki textbook, but more likely, the first time you really gain this skill is going to be the first month in which you read a visual novel with TA. Heavily practiced during your first month or two of reading VN's.
 
4. Kanji Skill:
 
Learning to spots radicals in kanji (could be covered by doing the 214 radicals, about 1 month. You could also do this ongoing basis, learning how to spot the radicals that make up a kanji, for the words you learn.)
-not needed to read VN's with TL aggregator, but extremely helpful for learning new words which have new kanji.
 
Learning to remember kanji, ie. start recognizing when words share the same kanji. (it is a long ongoing gradual process. You can start doing this with the vocab you learn once you are comfortable learning vocab. You can also pick out words you see in vn's and check whether they use the same kanji by typing them out (example 朝（あさ）　and　朝食（ちょうしょく）　use the same kanji.). Oh course, to be able to easily produce the kanji you want to compare you need to remember how to spell a word that contains it (in this case 朝). So, as your vocab expands, you'll be able to compare more kanji. Note that to be able to do this comparing you must be able to spot radicals in kanji (previous level skill).
-moderately helpful for learning vocabs. The same way remembering radicals helps learning with kanji: if you know the kanji clearly, you can remember a word just by the two kanji it uses, which is very precise and doesn't take a lot of mental bandwidth. It also means that you will much more rarely confuse words which have similiar looking kanji.
 
The following two skills are for more advanced, they won't be particularly useful until much later. You might not notice the problems they solve until later as well. I include them mainly for completeness.
Learning on-yomi for many of the Jyouyou kanji (start when you are intermediate-advanced, a medium-long process)
-helpful for exactly what it is, reading kanji words and compounds correctly.
-don't need to worry about this. From learning vocab you might pick up some of the common ones, but there's no need to pursue this actively for a while.
 
Learning kanji meaning: (start when you are advanced, and can use a J-J dictionary)
-suffixes like 府、省、性、症, as well normal kanji whose different meanings apply to clusters of words.
-helpful for kanji compounds which won't directly show up in dictionaries
-helpful for developing a native level understanding of vocabulary (not everything can be learned by exposure). A lot of literary words are fairly influenced by their kanji meanings, though sometimes consulting the word differentiation explanations can be more helpful.
 
 
 
One last topic...
 
On learning enough grammar and jumping into works too difficult for you.
Reading a VN isn't the best way to learn basic sentence structure. However, it's a great way to reinforce grammar points you've learned. It's also a great way to get an understanding of conversational patterns you won't find in textbooks or JLPT. But you won't have the presence of mind to pay attention to that if you are bogged down by not knowing basic grammar.
There are benefits for venturing early into native material or difficult vn's, but you wouldn't give a grade two student Tolkien, or even Harry Potter to improve their English. All the fancy prose and unusual concept would distract you from the more immediately useful things like, say: basic sentence structure.
There are works which are the right level, and there are VN's which you really want to read. For the best experience, it's best to find some combination of the two.
 
------------------
 
Ok that's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions: I didn't really go into the details of how to study, instead focusing on the, well, skills involved. But it's also hard to remember what it's like for someone just starting out. I remember parts of studying very clearly, but I forget the thousands of things I used to be puzzled through varying stages of understanding but now take for granted.
The process was all I could think about for the longest time. Now I don't give it much thought, it's just a regular part of my life, reading and a bit of studying. It's not bad idea, to just find a type of study that you know is helpful, stop thinking about all the right ways and wrong ways and magic tricks which don't exist, and just do it, for a while. Regularly. For a month or three.

Pop quiz, hotshot.
There’s an untranslated (i.e, romaji) word sitting there in the script you're editing, staring right up at you. It’s been left like that because the TL team figured people ought to know what it means. But will they really? And what are the ramifications if they don’t? You’re running out of time, and patch release day is breathing down your neck. What do you do?
WHAT DO YOU DO?
In the case of KoiRizo, I ended up relying on a journalistic standard commonly called “the first reference rule.” Here’s how it works.
Visual novels for all!
Let’s say you’re a journalist writing an article about efforts to improve educational standards in underdeveloped nations. At some point, you might find yourself needing to refer to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, aka UNESCO. But if just you dropped the acronym “UNESCO” in there, most people wouldn’t know what the bloody hell you were talking about. And if you went with “The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” every time, your prose would be about as ungainly as me at my prom. So a compromise gets struck: you explain the term on your first reference to it, then use the shorter form thereafter.
An example first reference:
“The director-general of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), pledged to make visual novels part of the global curriculum by 2025.”
Or:
“The director-general of UNESCO, the UN agency focused on international education efforts, pledged to make visual novels part of the global curriculum by 2025.”
At this point, you’d be free to use “UNESCO” in any future references, since you’ve already explained the term. Everyone wins: the reader understands what you’re talking about, and you only have to use one word instead of eight.

Ojousamas for all!
The same holds true for visual novels. Let’s say an untranslated term like “ojousama” shows up in your script. if the reader has consumed a fair number of anime/manga/VNs, they might know this describes a young woman of certain means and refinement. It’s a common VN archetype, after all. But a relative newcomer to these genres would have no way of knowing that. They’d be lost if you just started dropping O-bombs out of the blue.
So the first thing to do is determine context. Is this a one-off reference? If so, you can probably just fully translate the line and be done with it. (“She takes a limo to school? She must be an ojousama” becomes, “She takes a limo to school? She must come from money.”)
In the case of KoiRizo, however, the word “ojousama” is used several dozen times. In fact, a character’s ojousama-ness becomes the focal point of an entire route. It would be a fool’s errand to try and excise it, particularly when there’s no one English word to replace it. So we apply the first reference rule.
The initial mention in the translated KoiRizo script reads:
“Because she's an ojousama, it'd be a given that she wouldn't worry about matters like money.”
It hints at the meaning, but doesn't quite go far enough. So applying our rule, we update it to:
“She's a proper young lady of means — an ojousama — so you'd expect her not to worry about things like money.”
We’ve now defined the word “ojousama” in context and set the stage for its future use. This will make the rest of the VN flow much more smoothly for both new readers and purists who prefer their tropey terms untranslated. If several hours go by without us using the word again, it’s common courtesy to provide a reminder of its definition, but otherwise we should be good to go.

All for gruel!
You can even apply the rule in reverse. Here, two characters are about to spend 50 or so lines talking about a certain home-cooked dish. Original translation below:
A: “Okay ... What's in the pot?”
B: “Rice gruel with egg broth.”
We don’t want to spend the next 50 lines saying “Rice gruel with egg broth.” Nor do we want to just say “gruel,” which sounds like something ladled out in a Depression-era orphanage. In fact, this is a steaming bowl of Japanese comfort food deliciousness. So we apply the rule in reverse, and bring back the untranslated term from the original script:
A: “Okay ... What's in the pot?”
B: “Ojiya — rice end egg porridge.”
Now we can safely use the term “ojiya” for the next 50 lines. This ends up working better on several levels: it makes the dish sound more traditionally Japanese, it strikes the right emotional tone, and it helps us shave extra words from our lines.
P.S. - If anyone knows where I can get a really good bowl of ojiya in New York City, I’m all ears.

A good editor is a good reader.

By that, I don’t mean that he or she is well-read (although that helps). And I don’t mean that he or she reads exceptionally fast (although I’m sure that helps, too).

An editor’s most important job is to serve, quite literally, as the reader’s proxy. If you want to edit anything — a magazine article, a TV script, a visual novel — it’s your job to approach the text not as yourself, but as someone you’ve never met, someone who doesn’t share your likes, your dislikes, your accumulated knowledge. And that doesn’t mean approaching the text as some imaginary “ideal reader” either. They, like unicorns and affordable housing in San Fran, simply don’t exist. Seriously, when you ask a content creator to describe their “ideal reader,” they invariably end up describing themselves. Instead, it’s your job to edit for the “average reader.”

And just who is that? And how do you edit for them? That’s going to vary from title to title. If you’re editing some hardcore and super-niche VN, your assumed reader will be very different than that of some light and frothy moege. (And if you’re editing a Sakura title, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Let me buy you a shot.) That said, I do have some basic ground rules I try to follow.

1. Anticipate that this could be the reader’s first VN.
I've decided to edit visual novels because I believe in them as an art form. I want to see their English releases improve in quality and become more widely accepted outside of certain closed cultural circles. That means I choose to invite new VN readers into a text and make them feel, if not at home, then at least like a welcomed guest.

Stop. Put down the pitchforks. I’m not talking about dumbing down VNs. This is simply Writing 101. Among the authors I know, a common credo is, “A good novel teaches the reader how to read it.” (Unless it’s trying very, very hard to be unreadable. *cough*) A text in translation needs to work doubly hard to achieve this. First, it needs to bridge the gaps in cultural knowledge between the original audience (Japanese VN fans) and the secondary audience (Western VN fans). Otherwise, the work becomes much harder to read and enjoy than the author ever intended.

As you edit, read with beginner’s mind. Where might someone new to the VN genre get hung up? Which cultural nuances might prove confusing? Ask yourself if there’s a way you can bring clarity to those aspects without diluting the original text. If you do your job right, they’ll seem organic enough part of the VN that the experienced reader will barely know they’re there.



2. Choose to operate on the same timeline as the reader
As an editor, you have a luxury the reader does not: access to the full text. You probably go into the project already having read a large chunk of the VN several times over. Maybe you were even involved in the translation of it. Whatever the case, you run the risk of your brain filling in gaps that might leave the average reader confused.

Think of yourself as Bill Murray midway through Groundhog Day. Trapped in those endless 24 hours, he bull-rushes through his routine, responding not to what people are actually saying, but what he remembers them saying in past loops. He falls prey to over-familiarity and, as a result, alienates everyone he meets. It’s only when he learns to interact with people in their timeframe again, living and responding in the moment, that he finally gets what he wants. (The girl. It’s always the girl.)

Be late-movie Bill Murray. Edit mindfully.

When working on KoiRizo, I forced myself to do three separate editing passes. First, I tackled each script completely blind, going in with no more knowledge than any other reader. No cheating, no reading ahead. As I encountered lines that left me, the reader, feeling like I just missed something, I edited them as best I could but flagged them for later. Maybe the author intended that line to be cryptic. Maybe it was foreshadowing. Or maybe something got lost in translation. No way of knowing, so best to keep moving.

After reaching the end of a script, I’d start back at the beginning and do another full edit, this time focusing on the lines I’d flagged previously. VNs tend to be episodic, so if I hadn’t found the answer I needed inside that self-contained script, I elevated the flag and left a comment for the translator asking for clarification.

Finally, when I’d finished an entire route, I’d go back do a third, quick edit through the whole thing, top to bottom. I had all the facts from the scripts and all the notes from the translator, so if something still wasn’t working, it was likely all my fault. And that meant it was time to really hunker down and do some major surgery.

Technically, I also did a fourth edit pass once I’d finished the entire VN, since some of the routes had little in-jokes and references to other routes, but I consider that more of an enhanced read-through than anything, since I was only making tiny tweaks. Which brings me to my last point ...

3. Read, read, and read again
You might be done editing, but you’re not done reading. Find that beginner’s mind and read through everything again. And again. And again. Forget that you’re the one who rewrote the words on the page and just try to approach them anew. Be the reader. Each time, you’ll probably find something new — typos, grammatical errors, slight nuances you might have missed earlier that change the whole meaning of a line.

I read through KoiRizo a bunch of times and I know I still missed all sorts of things. Sorry! I've been kicking myself whenever I see the occasional typo report float through. (Editors are not proofreaders, by the way. Or vice versa. Fodder for a future blog post.) But at a certain point, a work just wants to get out in the world, warts and all.

And that’s another part of editing: learning to let go.

It's here! It's finally here! The Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort English patch release, brought to you by the tireless MDZ and team.

The plot: Soutarou thought it would be a summer like any other, working part-time at his aunt's dilapidated island resort. But then came the night of the meteor crash and the five strange space girls who climbed out of the smoldering crater. With them, they brought an ancient artifact that could doom the entire multiverse ... or save it.

Oh, who am I kidding? There are no space girls. It's just a moege set on a tropical island. I had a fun time editing it. Now go and read the thing already.

I’m a research junkie. Before taking on any new venture, I tend to waste stupid amounts time reading up on whatever it is I’m about to tackle. So when I got it in my head earlier this year to try editing a visual novel, the first thing I did was start googling like mad:
“visual novel editing tips”“visual novel editing advice”“visual novel editing examples”“should my baby’s poop be this color?” (Okay, I was multitasking. The answer is “yes,” by the way, but call your pediatrician if it stays like that for more than two or three days.)

It didn’t look good. I stumbled on a blog post Moogy had written on VN editing way back in 2009, but that was pretty much it. Still, to paraphrase Cadillac cribbing Brené Brown quoting Teddy Roosevelt, better to dare greatly and fail than just sit around and whine. So I dove in head-first … and landed head-first. I’d been hoping my experience in writing and editing ad campaigns would help me make short work of things. I mean, how different could it be?



Very different, as it turns out. I made a ton of rookie mistakes, followed by a bunch of slightly less rookie mistakes, topped off by several “Did you seriously just do that?” whoppers near the very end. Yet somehow, 36,000+ lines later, I managed to stumble across the finish line, just having edited my first visual novel. The result, MDZ’s translation of Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort, turned out pretty nicely, all things considered. (It should be releasing any day now. I’ll link to the patch when it does.) Of course, I still can’t read any of the scripts without obsessing over the countless things I wish I’d done differently.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Back when I first started, I couldn’t find any good resources on VN editing. Don’t worry – this won’t be one either. I’m still a rank amateur by any standard, so I wouldn’t presume to offer authoritative advice to anyone. But what I can do is discuss the various editing challenges I faced, my approach to them, and the many, many different ways I fell flat on my face. I might not have the right answers, but at least I can point out some of the things you might want to start considering if you’re planning on editing a VN.

Here's another way to think about it: In the (insanely great) Dark Souls games, there are bloodstains scattered throughout the game world marking places where other players have met their demise. Activate one, and you can see a spectral re-enactment of their final few seconds. Point being, if you see a bunch of bloodstains massed around a door, you can be sure something there’s something truly nasty lurking on the other side. It's probably a good idea to stop, watch, and learn from others' mistakes before going any further.

Let me be your Yoko Ono bloodstain. 

Welcome guys
 
This is a casual review of Air - standard edition, having played all 3 heroine routes plus "Summer", and "Air".
The translation I used is by Sheeta, and not Gao-gao translations (sorry).
 
I have seen the anime version a long time ago and I barely remember any details from it. I heard that the VN is better and so I tried it. After finishing the VN, I double down on that statement.
 

Some background: Air is released by KEY after Kanon, and before Clannad. I'd classify the game a Nakige, much like Clannad After Story.
The game has the theme of Summer, compared to Kanon's winter. I'm not sure if Clannad had a season theme.
 
Art: Key style. I personally like KEY style. I cannot really comment on the intricacies of the art and the CGs. I do think the number of CGs are quite few but I'm just spoiled.
 
Music/Sound: It's ok. There are a couple of memorable and catchy tunes (Minagi's theme) but nothing too bad, nothing too fantastic.
 
Story: I don't like the fact that I'm forced to play the other two heroines to unlock Summer+Air. Kano's route felt like a massive filler. Minagi's route is decent, while Mizusu's route felt just like Little Buster's Rin route is when playing it for the first time --- stopped short of the climax. Overall the heroine routes suffer from an unbearably SLOW development. I drowned on slice-of-life with what seems like 80% of the game. Literally felt like only 3 sentences out of a day in Air contributes to the advancement of the plot. It's quite anachronistic to make this comparison but, Air feels like an unrefined Clannad. If you are a KEY fan, you will see elements of KEY style in Air. The humor is hit-or-miss, not as good as Clannad or LB. Tension build-up was way too slow in Air, which is something they vastly improved in Clannad in my opinion.

 

The highlight of the whole game for me was Summer route. It contained tension from very early in the route and kept me hooked from start to finish. I'm not sure if going through two unrelated filler arcs was worth getting to Summer. But I would say this route even trumped the final route "Air", and is the main bone of the game. Summer is very impactful. Most of the final route "Air" was mostly a repeat of Misuzu's route and it's quite unpleasant to go through the slice-of-life elements again with barely any change on the narration... The story line outside of "Summer" arc only spikes in drama at the end. Tension in the mid-route is almost non-existent. The mysteries are so-so.
 

As for themes, I'm not really good at analyzing but I will try. The setting takes place on a rural town, and as such cell-phones and modern technology doesn't exist as much. By playing Air, you get a sense of the laidback countryside, with its elderly. The setting is so simple there's nothing eyecatching or interesting. But simplicity in itself seems to be what the setting conveys. Sky and flying are the main aspects of the story and there are countless references to it in-game. There are some great quotes all throughout the game, but I wasn't engaged too much with any kind of philosophical stimulation. I'm sure there are countless other themes that the game conveyed but I won't bother brainstorming at this point.
 

Scores: I'm not going to try to come up with arbitrary number for every category but I will give this VN an overall score of 6-7; meaning I will put it in the AVERAGE category. I have played or watched so much slice-of-life stories that I'm just numbed to the majority of the scenes here. Usually at that point, if there are no main plot developments happening, then humor is the only one that keeps me going. Air's humor is spotty as I mentioned before.
 
Will I recommend this?
If you like other KEY titles and its narratives, and are a fan of drama --- then yes. If you are a beginner or new to the Visual Novel scene, play this one later. There are countless numerous other better VNs than Air. Part of the reason I have survived through this game was because I was already a huge fan of KEY (having replayed Clannad like 4 times). As a standalone game it's so-so, not a bad VN, but not superb.
 
And so I leave you with a few more quotes.

Tou no Shita no Exercitus, as I mentioned in the previous post, pretty much eliminates most of the problems that Verethragna had in terms of the card combat system, in exchange for a loss of any real challenge, outside of the last boss and a few others along the way. That impression didn't change throughout my experience of the last few chapters of the game, so at this point, I won't bother rehashing that explanation.
 
More importantly, I thought I should mention that this VN doesn't commit the greatest sin of a gameplay hybrid by using the gameplay in place of narration (rather than to supplement it). Its combat scenes have decent (if not overwhelmingly good) narration, and there is a general sense that this was someone's work of love, as well as business, which is relatively rare in VNs these days. The plot, while not anything new (the setting channels Wild Arms and Mana Khemia, which had me cracking up a bit) is nonetheless solidly written, and the characters, while sometimes a bit overly comical in nature, were generally well-described and developed by the end, with a few exceptions (Ruana's team, the tower keepers), though this was alleviated by the large number of side-events you could access during the last chapter to get to know them.
 
The existence of money is actually pretty pointless, since you can get by just by using the cards you pick up along the way (though third level single-enemy magic attack cards can only be purchased in the store, as far as I could tell). On the other hand, this means that you are free from the need to budget, instead allowing you to focus on dungeon-crawling to get your levels even with the enemies and obtain cards you might find of use.
 
Overall, this VN was surprisingly good, leaving me with a general good feeling, though it wasn't exceptionally awesome. This VN would probably suit the tastes of people who like the Koihime Musou series (if you excise the first game, which was localized) and other 'light' gameplay hybrids, where the gameplay is designed to be easy to navigate. It isn't anywhere near kamige level, but it is nonetheless VN of the Month, August 2015.

A year has already passed since I started, so I decided to write something about the things I did and some things I have learned.
 

I did say a year but actually, I informally began from the time I started watching anime. What I did was to listen attentively to the lines of the characters while associating them to the subtitle and to the scene. Doing this, I learned basic grammar and basic vocabulary.
 
The formal endeavor started on Sept. 10, 2014. I learned kana and some 300 basic kanji through writing. I doubt someone will do this but still, I do not recommend to do the same as writing takes a lot of time and it doesn't help that much in reading. Reading can only be learned by doing the actual reading. (But doing something others cannot, is always fun.)
 
I came to fuwa, met rains, then found a good news. Learning japanese can be done while reading visual novels.
 
After 3.5 months, I decided to read my first raw vn since I already learned basic grammar, basic vocab, kana, and some 300 kanji.
 

 
My first game was a moege. I started with this type of game because I heard around the forums that moege is the easiest type of game. But it was not easy.
 
I'm a perfectionist so I worked hard to understand every single line, while reading it several times aloud, until I can speak it fluently. Darn perfectionist. Because of this method, a month has already passed yet I haven't even reached the 1st choice. Something has to change.
 

 
I changed my approach. This time, I just move on after getting the gist, while keeping in mind to guess how the repeating word is read, before looking it up in the dictionary. It's faster and is a lot more fun than what I was doing before.
 

 

I didn't completely comprehend everything but I still knew what's going on, thanks to the support from several factors:
 
a. context of the scene
b. background music
c. characters' facial expression & gestures
d. characters' tone & nuance.
 
These things are very important, as it fills the stuff I didn't get from reading.
 

 
The first game was specially tough. The key is not to give up. As much as possible, one should avoid reading two or more games at the same time and concentrate on a single vn. Avoid reading a vn then dropping it, then continue to repeat the cycle. Finishing a VN completely, gives motivation to read more. Also, one should not rely too much on Jparser. Atleast have a dictionary program for support. These are my suggestions for guys who are planning to read raw vns.
 
My goal is to enjoy visual novels without tools.
 
My initial impression when I was starting was, before attempting to read VNs, I should have a good grasp of the 2136 Jouyou Kanji first. This is a common misconception. Having solid basic grammar is the "go signal". Grammar acts like a backbone/outline/foundation in understanding Japanese.
 

 
As for kanji, grinding them one by one, is not as enjoyable & effective as remembering them in VNs wherein kanji is used in actual words.
 
For some words, I start by identifying them as a "unit" and not as "assembled parts". For example, the word 自動販売機 (jidouhanbaiki / vending machine). I think of this as【自動販売機】and not as 自+動+販+売+機. The first and the last characters are my main focus. Through its repeated appearance, I slowly recognized the characters "inside" the word and their respective order. Then eventually learned their on-yomi as well. 自 is "ji", 動 is "dou", 販 is "han",etc.
 

 
Also, I found the hiraganas that succeed the kanji of a word very useful in remembering the words. I'll just call them "hiraganas" here.
 
Say I'm not sure what the word 確かめる means and how it is read. But I can read the hiragana part so it will look like this in my mind. 〇かめる
 
"Now, I don't know any other word with 'kameru' as its 'hiraganas' aside from 'tashikameru'. I'm not sure though if that's correct. Hmm. *checks the dictionary* Oh yeah, it is 'tashikameru'."
 
Due to it's constant appearance in the lines, I started to associate the appearance of 確 with かめる and with it's corresponding reading and meaning. Then eventually recognized 確かめる reflexively. It also told me that 確 is "tashi", therefore, 確かに is "tashikani".
 
I believe that Repetition is key to learning any skill. Maji.
 

 
About 2 months ago, I began watching anime again but this time, without subs. Watching raw anime improves my vocab and it gives me satisfaction and enjoyment more than those with subs, since there is no distraction.
 
Now, I'm going to give few comments about the airing anime series this season that I am watching, which I arranged according to difficulty from how I see them.
 
Easy to understand
 
1. Danchigai - 3.5 mins / episode. A really soothing series.
2. Ore Monogatari - 好きだ！
3. Gakkou Gurashi! - Cute girls doing cute things, in a not so cute situation.
4. Prison School - Funniest thing on earth.
5. Ao Haru x Kikanjuu - Has similar premise as Ouran HSHC. This one though is action.
6. Charlotte - story by Jun Maeda (Key). Charlotte's episode 7 is one of the best episodes I have ever watched. Started to get quite complex on episode 8.
 
Not so easy
 
7. Shokugeki no Souma - Best anime. The cooking terms are not easy.
8. Ushio to Tora - Youkai terms. I normally hate noisy songs but I love this series' OP. Has a tsundere.
9. GATE - Military. Honestly I have no idea what's going on with the plot aside from the obvious.
 

 
Well, that's the end of this.
Screenshots from Le Labyrinthe De La Grisaia

Zirconia
Zirconia is the protagonist's elven 'oneechan', who basically took care of him while he was in the other world... and who raised him like Hikari Genji in the Genji Monogatari to be her ideal man. She is probably the most straight-out hilarious heroine in the game, because she even goes so far as to lock the door whenever they are alone in a room, has a dakimakura of the protagonist, and her favorite pastime is having daydreams about the protagonist...

Her path is easily the most complex and deep of the paths in this VN (well, the ones I was willing to play), and her character development is the most thorough. Unfortunately, the path is also a straight-out template of an overused fantasy self-sacrificial type of love, and the resolution is even more template, if that is possible. I wasn't expecting to be surprised by anything by Hook Soft, but I felt more than a little exasperated at how obvious they were in this case.

Miisha and Pascal
Miisha and Pascal are sub-heroines, whose routes last maybe thirty minutes. Both are straight-out 'fall in love for an idiotic reason, have sex, story over' paths that are basically excuses for more catgirl and elven H-scenes.

Overall
Overall, this VN is a moege, straight and out... it'll appeal to people who don't care about the story and just want to see lots of moe fantasy characters. However, anyone who likes to see solid storytelling (even if it is within the limits of a charage) will probably have trouble getting anywhere with this VN... because if you stuck a ruler into its depths, only an inch or so would come out wet. Perhaps the best part of this VN is actually the music, which reminds me of Suikoden I and II (PS1 rpgs) in style, frequently. I honestly had to praise their taste in music for this VN, though they didn't use it very well.

First, I’ll say a few words about the Tiny Dungeon series. This series is made up of five games (if you include Endless Dungeon, which is a sequel/canon ending that brings a conclusion to the post-Brave and Slave events). The first three VNs are each focused on one of the three main heroines… Veil Sein, Ururu Kajuta, and Note Ruum. The fourth VN – Brave or Slave – brings an end to the story began in Black and White, and the fifth – Endless Dungeon – is a final conclusion and after-story for the entire group. The first VN, Black and White, contains the common route and the Veil Sein (the demon girl) route.

Veil is probably the most obvious deredere heroine in existence… since she doesn’t have a drop of tsun in her body. She loves Hime, lives for him, and without hesitation will erase the existence of anyone who bothers him. The fact that she has the power to do so (the most powerful individual in the demon realm) kind of makes her scary to the various people who don’t like Hime (obviously). Needless to say, I love her, lol.

Anyway, this VN, like all the VNs in the Tiny Dungeon series, balances hilarity, serious drama, and emotional moments in a way that you generally won’t see in a VN that is so relatively easy to read. That’s not to say it is a really easy read (it tends to range between 4.5-7)… but it is much easier to read than most VNs with action scenes.

The music in all these VNs is pretty good, primarily utilizing piano and techno pieces to enhance and create moods as is appropriate, and they are generally tastefully presented. The voices can be a bit exaggerated, and there is one scene early on when you’ll notice a bit of fuzziness in the background (as a friend explained to me, it is the engine the game runs on, rather than the actual voice-acting or recording itself). However, they are nonetheless generally suited to their characters… and there are a lot of characters.

In this VN, there are three main heroines (as stated above) and four total sub-heroines in the series who make up Hime’s hare- I mean, his group of friends. They consist of Amia (Note’s little sister), Opera (Ururu’s psychotic maid), Fon (the dragon/demon hybrid), and Kou (the protagonist’s human roommate). There are also another dozen or so major and minor characters who appear on screen and have a significant effect on the story as a whole, though not all of them appear in the first game.

Generally speaking, there is no point in any of the main-series VNs where there is no point to what is going on. The story is always moving forward or creating the basis for moving forward, and the comedy that is used to frost the cake is ever-present, save for in the most tense scenes.

Hime, the protagonist, is a natural leader and hard worker who has an incredibly strong will and a reasonable level of intelligence (he’s not a genius, but neither is he average). More importantly, he understands people and has a big, accepting heart. Generally speaking, he is one of the few unvoiced protagonists outside of a chuunige where I truly and absolutely enjoyed every second behind his eyes…

One thing you have to keep in mind about this VN is that it is one part in four… and the events in this game are inevitably going to break your heart at times. I know I cried several times in the course of this VN, even though I’ve already played it before.

Overall, this VN still gets a strong recommendation from me, both for relatively advanced beginners and veterans alike.

I'm currently playing Black Wolves Saga, an otomege by Rejet. I'm going to repeat a statement I've made many times in the past about otomege in general... their tropes are like a cancer on the genre in general. DIDS (Damsel in Distress Syndrome), tsundere heroes, psychotic/obsessive/possessive heroes, and dominating heroes rot these VNs from the inside in the same way the osananajimi heroines, airhead heroines, and self-insert protagonists of male-oriented VNs do to those.

This VN is no exception.

The protagonist is your typical optimistic, slightly airheaded doormat that makes up ninety percent of all otomege protagonists. That this VN is an utsuge only makes this stand out more... she attracts a huge host of yandere, yangire, and just generally insane and/or broken heroes who are - to one degree or another - obsessed with her. To be honest, I was almost impressed that they could manage to put so many crazy people in as romantic interests in a single VN.

I finished the two Cait Sith main heroes' paths last night... and my thought was 'This is what is listed as a GOOD ending? Seriously? Just how much of a moronic doormat can she be?' To be blunt, it resembled some of the bad endings I've seen in chuunige where the protagonist basically spends the rest of his life as a sex-slave for a psychotic female who isn't quite a heroine before she decides to kill him on a whim. There is absolutely nothing likable about either of them, no redeeming value to them as people... and you are required to finish their paths to access some of the more interesting heroes.

To be honest, this entire VN would be a lot more interesting if they had put it in complete 3rd person and made you just a spectator to what was going on rather than forcing you to self-insert into an idiotic ditz who occasionally shows signs of intelligence, only to make you give up on her five minutes later when she thinks, says, or does something so completely idiotic that it cancels out those brief moments of actual intellect.

I'm being really harsh... but where this story really stands out is in the depth of the setting and the degree to which the writer captures the insanities of human nature when driven to extremes by a hellish life or the events of the world around them. The characters are generally distasteful scum or people who make you want to kick them in the head for stupid naivete, but in exchange, you get a story of genocide, intrigue, torture, and murder that lines itself up with a number of other dark fantasy out there... and doesn't lose out completely, despite the cast of characters.

Another place where this VN stands out is in its music and art... the art is a unique style, with the use of colors and detail you generally don't see even in your average otomege. The music is dominated primarily by gloomy and sorrowful tunes... but those tunes are pretty high quality, so it is a plus, despite most of the tracks being depressing.

While I plan to play one of the wolf paths, I have no interest in playing all the paths of this VN, so think of this as my general impression for the time being. Being the protagonist of this VN is just too frustrating given the setting for me to be able to stand it much longer.

I'll start out saying this. The primary reason I hadn't played this up until now was because the concept just sounded so silly on paper, no matter how many times I read it. I mean, making sex toys as a gameplay element? Seriously? However, I don't regret playing this game in any sense of the word, and it escapes being a nukige despite the concept.

First, the gameplay... There are two major aspects to the gameplay, a phase where you research and make sex toys as well as other daily activities (such as expanding facilities or conducting general research with a heroine) and a battle phase that pops up at irregular times. The battle phase is a card-based system (with random draws) based off of rock-paper-scissors where you deal damage to an enemy based on your character's stats plus the number on the cards. You can combine the three types of cards in a combo that both increases hits and damage, and the first card in the combo decides whether it is rock, paper, or scissors. To an extent, the battles are based on luck, so you shouldn't expect to be able to win at all times. The 'daily life' gameplay focuses on the creation of sex toys and the handing over of lost technology to your company's partner/parent company in order to increase their share of the market. The basic objective is to put together 500,000,000 yen in earnings (put together from bonuses for handing over tech and the sales of sex toys you researched and put into production) and gain a total of a 70% share of the market so you can do a hostile takeover of the SHE corporation.

The story is so intimately connected to the gameplay that I couldn't help but be impressed at how they supplemented one another. I had to rofl at the sex toy H-scenes (they range from the bizarre to the psychotic), and there was just enough slice-of-life to give you a strong impression of all the characters (and heroines) without becoming tedious. The story itself was fairly awesome, with the nature and future of artificial intelligence and scientific ethics as major themes. I honestly enjoyed both the main story and the ideas behind it, and I didn't manage to get bored at any time during the course of the game (I pulled an all-nighter to finish it and I just woke up after two hours of sleep). To be honest, I don't have anything significant to complain about, storywise, with this game, though I could have wished for a non-bad Kuon ending (I got all the Teria and Fam endings - non-human heroines banzai!!!).

This is a good VN for someone who wants a good balance between the comedic and the serious in a gameplay-based VN that is relatively easy to master. There are a few too many H-scenes, but considering the concept, there were actually a lot fewer than I expected.

The idea of a harem is a very old one. In fact, there is literally no culture (prior to Christianity) that, sometime in its past, did not accept the idea of a harem in one form or another.

However, it was never a simple system of one man simply marrying as many women as he wanted. In some places, it was a mark of familial wealth. In order to avoid long-term difficulties, a wealthy individual would take numerous wives, produce numerous sons, and split that wealth amongst those sons in order to prevent his fellow villagers or townsmen from turning on his family at some future point. In others, it was a mark of political power. An Emperor would take numerous wives, both to form alliances with his nobles and foreign countries and in order to ensure the continuance of his dynasty (in most Imperial dynasties, it was accepted that there would be vicious palace politics that would kill off numerous potential heirs). In old China, it was accepted that a man would take a primary wife and many concubines if he had the wealth to do so. The primary wife would be the mistress of the family, whereas the others would help administer the husband's estates under her direction.

So why did the harem system go out of fashion? It didn't, really. Most men of power and wealth have mistresses, even today, and the attitude of most 'old money' families is one of resignation toward this kind of behavior. Of course, religiously and legally those living in the mostly Christian west can only have a single wife, but the tacit approval of wealthy and powerful men taking mistresses is a work-around common to almost all monogamist cultures.

Now, for the morality of it... extract religion and hypocritical social mores from the mix, and you basically have three golden standards by which the idea of a harem might be condemned or approved:

1. Are the men/women involved satisfied with the situation and well-treated?

2. Does the male or female holder of the harem have the wealth to support his/her spouses and any resulting children?

3. Are the resulting children happy and healthy?




That's real life. VNs do it a bit differently. Because VNs tend to avoid dirty details (no, I don't mean H, I mean real-life style drama) and ignore inconvenient realities, the average VN probably wouldn't be able to fulfill those standards in the long run. This is because most VN protagonists don't have the capability or strength of will to both manage the inevitable internal conflicts of a harem (herding cats) and bring in enough money to support a large family. For this reason, most VN harems just don't qualify in my eyes as being a realistic idea.

That said, there are VNs that actually consider the realities and make it seem like a realistic choice... but most don't manage it, lol. I especially have to rofl at harem nukige and moege.

Now, for my personal viewpoint... I basically think that if you can manage to fulfill the 'golden rules' above, there is no reason why I should care if you have multiple wives/lovers. On the other hand, if you can't afford to have a wife and kids, you shouldn't. I hate optimists.

First, I'll give you a quick run-down on this game... it is a game by 3rd Eye, a company known mostly for producing chuunige that are more moe-influenced than is the norm. This game is actually more of a mystery/chuuni/action/conspiracy type than a 'pure' chuunige. The world in which it is based is a future where, ten years before the story began, magic appeared on the scene. Large numbers of people became capable of using magic, and a new branch of science was built up solely for the purpose of utilizing magic as new energy source. The result of this is a society that is somewhat divided between the magical 'haves' and 'have-nots', though that isn't the focus of the story, despite what you might otherwise anticipate.

The protagonists

Senri


Senri is your classic 'bad-ass antihero protagonist'. He is clever, intelligent, and overall highly capable, with a razor-sharp mind and battle instincts that would put a Navy Seal to shame and make Golgo 13 look incompetent. His cold-blooded pursuit of his own interests, which are very opaque through most of the VN, is his primary defining feature... Oh, and he lies... a lot. He makes the protagonist of Sharin no Kuni seem honest.

Haruto

Haruto is a somewhat less beloved type of protagonist in chuunige... basically a 'justice freak' combined with being 'a young man driven against his will by the tides of fate'. He is a natural optimist and a believer in fairness above all. Unfortunately, he also has that bad habit a lot of similar chuunige protagonists have... of sticking his nose into situations he doesn't really need to get involved in. He grows a great deal during the course of the VN (as is typical of this type, if the writers don't suck), and by the end his viewpoint on the world has... been sharpened a great deal by experience. He is more likeable than a lot of similar protagonists, but it still isn't a type I prefer.

The Heroines

Fiona


Fiona, at first glance, seems to be your classic clutzy/innocent nun-type heroine. She works as a nun at a run-down church in the city's... less reputable area and is well-loved by the delinquents who frequent the church. However, she, like most of the characters in this game, is hiding a lot of secrets... She is one of Senri's two heroines.

Noa

An innocent, pure-hearted girl who is seen mostly as a ghost throughout the first part of the game. She has a really unique way of speaking, born partially from Senri's half-hearted efforts at education (mostly through handing her magazines and letting her watch AVs). To be honest, in the reading of this VN, interpreting her weird speech patterns was a bit difficult at first (she cuts apart words and puts them together in weird ways). She is the second of Senri's two heroines.

Asahi

Asahi is... a bit weird. Her personality itself is quite straightforward and honest, and she hates lies and general dishonesty with a passion. However, she is also compassionate to a fault and unwavering in the pursuit of her goals. Unfortunately - at least so it seems at first - there are a few loose screws rolling around in that head of hers. Even more so than Haruto, she is an eternal an unrepentant optimist and probably the single most trustworthy individual in the entire VN.

Riku


Riku is, throughout the VN, perhaps the least expressive individual other than Senri himself. She almost never displays her emotions on her face, and she has an almost unnatural tendency to think objectively about anything and everything, including herself. That the writer managed to grant her so much depth without making her a protagonist was an impressive feat in and of itself... and one of the reasons why her interactions with Haruto and Asahi are so amusing. She really is almost as detached as she seems most of the time, which is one of the reasons it hits so hard when she does become emotional.

The VN

Sorcery Jokers is definitely VN of the Month material. I'll say that right off the bat. The depth of the story and characters is incomparable with previous games by this company, and while it falls slightly short of a kamige, it is nonetheless something worth taking note of. Normally, I can't stand dual protagonists, as many have heard me mention. I hated Subahibi for that, amongst a number of other sins, and one of the biggest reasons it took me so long to play I/O was because I don't like going into VNs with multiple protags.

Fortunately, I managed to get past that, simply because the differing approaches to the story were the only thing that made it possible to grasp something even approaching the whole of the story as it happened. A single perspective wouldn't have done a bit of good as an approach to this VN's story, simply because there are too many things happening at too many different points for a single perspective to handle.

The VN's structure is basically that of a kinetic novel, with the illusion of choice through a flow chart (for the first chapter, at least) where you pick and choose which events you want to see next (though you have to see them all anyway). To be honest, I could have done without the flow chart entirely... flow charts in general are an irritation more than a help, especially if they are made a central part of progressing the story. That said, as the actual switching around mostly ends after the first chapter, it isn't really a big deal (though it does make me wonder why they had a flow chart at all).

The story's mystery and conspiracy elements feel a lot like peeling an onion, as there are layers within layers within layers. What you thought was the root of things turns out to be just another layer, more than once. As things come together near the end, the knowledge you've gained through the character perspectives deepens the experience nicely, making this one of the few part-mystery VNs I've played in recent years that I didn't immediately have 'read' relatively early on.

That isn't to say there aren't points where the VN stumbles. Haruto, because of his role as the 'kid chuunige protag', is the game's Achilles Heel, as all protagonists of the type with his kind of temperament tend to be. However, his growth is enough to offset the cookie-cutter aspects of his character enough that I approved of his role... in the end. Asahi also threatens to tilt the balance of the VN into the realm of the silly a lot early on, simply because of her 'weirdness'. However, because that silliness is a vital ingredient in her growth as a character, it can't really said to be a true weakness, though it can be irritating at times.

The endings are all branches off of the true end, one for each heroine (Noa or Fiona with Senri, and Asahi or Riku with Haruto). I had no problems with the epilogues for Noa or Fiona... but I thought that Haruto had devolved a lot in his heroine epilogues, which kind of brought me back to why I didn't like him in the first place.

Overall, I felt that this VN is one of the more solid chuunige made in the last few years, especially in the sense of 'balance'. Silverio Vendetta, while it is a lot more exhilarating, also had the difficulty of disproportionately focusing the writer's attention on Vendetta, which weakened the other two paths greatly. Bansenjin suffers from reusing an uninspiring cast and being relatively boring throughout most of its length. In terms of a constant sense of tension and in terms of pacing of events, this VN definitely is the winner of Chuunige VN of the Year so far, though it isn't chuuni-crack in the sense that Silverio was. I'm actually quite proud of the fact that this company has evolved so much since its somewhat... unimpressive beginnings (Bloody Rondo), and I'm glad I stuck with the company. It is always nice to be surprised pleasantly by a VN.

First, I should probably address those who questioned why I never played this VN before... the answer is that I did try this VN 'way back when' and couldn't get past the prologue. To be frank, the prologue of this VN is pretty... unimpressive. However, once you get past that prologue, you are put into what probably amounts to the best nakige I've ever played.

This VN is a kinetic novel, with only a single ending. It combines elements of mythology, mystery, fantasy, and psychological horror (relatively mild) into a single whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. For those who love Araragi (to be honest, I think all of those who read this VN love Araragi) more than Hiyo... my condolences. There is only one path and it is Hiyo's.

The child-version of Hiyo in the pic above is part of one of my favorite early scenes in the VN and the scene that pretty much locked in my love of the characters as a whole. I'm a sucker for appeals to emotions like the ones in this VN, and there is very little in this VN that doesn't appeal to your emotions on some level. The warmth and kindness of the three girls closest to the protagonist and the dynamic between the four of them is central to most of the story. While Hiyo-love indeed has a big impact on the story, romance in this VN is ultimately merely one of many themes, ranging from the obvious 'love of art' and 'autumn', to 'the nature of kindness'.

For those who have seen the opening song on youtube... you should probably be aware that the entire OST for this VN is on that level or better. Like many of the best VNs out there, the musical direction and the choice of music in general is superb... a work of art. There are many Chinese-classical and hybrid Japanese-classical themes mixed in with various other types, and this adds to the atmosphere created by the 'old Japan' design of the school and dorms where all the events of the story take place. These aspects, combined with the plentiful expressions and poses given to the characters' tachie, are used effectively to create the 'personality' of the VN as a whole.

The most important way to evaluate VNs that fall into the 'nakige' category is how much they made you love the characters, thus giving you a reason to cry for them. In that sense, I can honestly say that it leaves almost every nakige I've played in the dust (including all of Key's). The lack of massive casts of heroines and multiple paths serves to make every occurrence in this VN feel 'real', adding more impact to the sorrow, joy, hope, and pride that continually break your heart. I can honestly say that I feel Propeller used the 'kinetic novel' format to its fullest, succeeding in creating a story with an impact far in excess of what it would have possessed if it had been a multi-path story.

Now... I feel it is about time I stopped praising this VN and spoke about the one issue that bothered me, even after I finished it...

... it truly amazed me how bad the VN is during the initial stages. It feels awkward and forced, and that sense of 'eh, what were they trying to do here?!' is so strong at first that it was enough to make me drop this five years ago without a second thought. Of course, back then I hadn't been as thoroughly 'trained' by years of playing moege that are far worse than this... but it is still a flaw in an otherwise awesome VN. That said, once it gets started, this VN is really, really hard to put down.

Overall, the only people I can't recommend this to are the extreme moe and dark fantasy fans. For all that the designs are most definitely moe, the degree to which the characters suffer in this VN will be a bit much for the soft-moe addicts. For the dark fantasy fans... you'll probably be a bit put off by a lack of action and murder. This VN has precisely one action scene that would interest that type... and it isn't that long (though it is important to the story in general). Everyone else? If you can make it past the prologue, I can guarantee you'll fall in love with the characters, even if other aspects bother you.

So some may have noticed that it's been a while since my last update. Some explanation is in order.
I was extremely displeased by the shift in policy that banned lolicon (non-explicit images and discussion) from the forums, together with (what I saw as) the suppression of dissent that followed. I saw this as a serious threat to the free exchange of ideas at Fuwanovel, a repudiation of my long-standing crusade to fight moral fanaticism against loli content, and also as an indication that Fuwanovel was trying to distance itself from adult content (similar to Sekai Project)--which was my core interest in visual novels to begin with. I engaged in PM rants with several members of Fuwa leadership, and eventually had a long talk with Tay about my grievances. I finally reached an understanding with Tay: the site policy change would be reviewed at the end of August, and user feedback would be brought to their lawyer with the aim of dialing back the restrictions on lolicon--retaining only the minimum restrictions necessary to protect Fuwanovel legally and commercially.
As a consequence of this fallout, I began looking for options to create and host content independent from Fuwanovel. I decided to create a "true" personal blog on Google Blogger and start migrating content there.
http://sanahtlig.blogspot.com/
Hosting content on sanahtlig.blogspot provides several advantages:
Freedom to host whatever types of content I'd like without impacting my partners (like Fuwanovel) Greater control over layout and formatting, as well as a more full-featured text editor Full access to stats and analytics (something I've whined to Fuwazette about in the past) New articles I've added to sanahtlig.blogspot in the past month:
Mangagamer partners with Alicesoft to prevent the Rance series from being released in English Aselia the Eternal 3 teased - in English! Erotic dungeon-crawler Lightning Warrior Raidy 3 strikes English shores Articles significantly updated:
Why I endorse JAST’s censorship of Shiny Days Let me know what you think of the current layout. I've put a decent amount of effort into making the site functional and visually appealing.
I still plan to stick around and post on Fuwanovel, and perhaps I'll again ally myself with Fuwanovel should our interests converge once more. As always, I remain open to working with Fuwazette and FuwaReviews. I also continue to work closely with eroge news site LewdGamer.
I'm still considering what to do with this blog. If there's interest, I could post an update here with a link whenever I add an entry to Google Blogger. I may also continue to host posts rooted in the Fuwanovel community (like A commentary on American exceptionalism) here.
Also, I did get Tay's permission to host affiliate links on Fuwanovel. In return, I agreed to donate the first $20 of my annual earnings to Fuwanovel. Expect to see a lot fewer VNDB links from me and more links to store pages instead. Store pages for adult products are usually not-safe-for-work. You have been warned.

Well, the answer to the above question is simple... I saw the monster girl anime for this season's first episode and got curious about what kind of content these games had... to be honest, I was planning to drop it inside the first few hours, using it as a break from more serious content before starting Baldr Force.. but I was surprised to find just how good the writing in these games is.

That said, the early games (the Lamia and Alraune games) are nukige, as presented... and the H scenes are kind of guro in a lot of cases (to be honest, I can't get into the H in this series at all, lol). However, I was kind of stunned at how good the writing is in the ones I've played and how they created a sense of connection and continuity between all the VNs in the series. First, you have to understand that all the VNs prior to Monmusu Gakuen are written in the same general period of the setting's history and Gakuen is written in a period fifteen to twenty-five years after those (the kids from three of the VNs are heroines in Gakuen).

The most solid of the VNs as a whole is the Arachne/Harpy/Cyclops VN, which focuses on Hibiki, a guy who basically gets summoned from Earth by Ariane the Arachne on a whim... The speed with which he adjusts to his new lifestyle is a bit unreal, but the interactions between him and the heroines are endlessly amusing... and the actual story of each path is touching enough emotionally that I cried, despite the fact that I had to skip past the H to keep from being ill in some cases (you can tell that the writer is basically acting out his fetishes with enthusiasm...).

The Scylla/slime VN is the second most solid, with a somewhat... free-spirited pirate as a protagonist. The slime is a total moron who believes anything the scylla maid says... which wouldn't be so bad if the scylla's hobby wasn't making her look like an idiot. I spent most of this one just laughing... endlessly laughing. I laughed until my jaw hurt with this one. The general absurdity of the VN's premise doesn't in any way take away from the comedic character dynamic or the emotionality of the heroine paths (there is pretty much nothing emotional until you actually get on those two paths).

Monmusu Gakuen is the weakest of the three I completed (three VNs in two days) and it retains a lot of the atmosphere of the other two... but in exchange, the H is even more guro and the number of heroines kind of dilutes the emotionality of the paths in several cases. Nonetheless, it is easy to get attached to them, simply because of the protagonist's point of view as their teacher.

I came out of curiosity and stayed for the writing.

I'm just curious... why is it that some of the best VN writers are the weirdest kind of pervert?

Edit: I almost didn't write anything on these... but I felt I owed it to the people who might actually be interested in this kind of interracial romance story to at least say something about my experience. I just also felt the need to warn you that... if you have imaginings about the H, it is actually probably a bit worse than you imagined.

Normally, I don't finish the VN of the Month games so early (I'd expected to be forced to take more time out for Neyuki, and so I've been left at loose ends). So, I normally just pull a few random VNs out of my massive backlog (mostly stuff I got at really low prices through my friend in Japan), play them, then mini-review them. However, I've chosen to be a bit more ambitious this time around, since I have the time. I'm actually going to make a schedule!

1. Kikouyoku Senki Gin no Toki no Corona (currently playing this)
2. Baldr Force EXE
3. Baldr Bullet
4. You choose, something that isn't on my vndb list. If I don't already have it, I can probably find it. I'm going to be straight about this, the only rules are: no nukige, no rapegames, nothing that is obviously moe-bait (moe aspects is fine, but I am not interested in playing something like Feng's games or To Heart, lol), no translated

Feel free to make suggestions to me in the comments, based on VNs you either played yourself or ones you want to play but can't because of your own lack of Japanese knowledge. Make sure you check my vndb list before you make a suggestion, as I don't plan to replay anything at the moment. Be aware that there is very little of interest that I haven't played between 2011-2015's releases, so I ask that requests be limited to VNs to 2011 or before.

Even if I only manage to finish through Baldr Bullet by the end of the month, the requests made here will be taken into account in my decisions as to what to play next month and the month after.

Made sure to use the version where Kuon is actually wearing something.
Introduction:
 
Phew, that was long. I wasn't playing the whole time, but I still took nearly a good month and a half. Despite that, I actually have less to talk about than last time.
Gurenka left me with a satisfying feeling finishing Kuon's route. The game has two satisfying routes with decent endings (two of them, to be exact), but outside those two routes it seriously lacks substance. I'd say what I enjoyed the most were Elsrise and Kuon's characters and the BGM.
 
This post is pretty much non-spoiler, I'm don't mention the details or the endings.
 
Character notes:
 
Elsrise's was my favourite character. She had several sides which were quite different, but her character felt well-formed and not forced. A number of developments were only plausible/possible because of her personality.
 
Kuon was a mashup of a ton of different elements, which doesn't make her a strong character so much as her being entertaining in pretty much every scene featuring her ever. She does settles down into something much more coherent in her route though. In fact, I'd Ryouji and Kuon's evolving relationship was one of the shows of the VN. If you like supernatural romance you'll enjoy her route. It's still kinda short though, because there isn't that much plot.
 
Saori was a bit verbose and too explanatory at times. I guess her super frankness didn't mesh well with me. That and it never stops, she doesn't have another mode, other than occasionally being worried.
 
Katsuragi-sensei was a pretty cool minor character who makes the most appearances in Saori's route. It was cool how he brought together the frustration of a denied future, with the strong goal of guiding the next generation towards their futures . He even has one scene with kuon. That was fantastic. In general, I enjoyed the way the MC interacted with him. It was intermittent, off-beat, but pleasant.
 
Fumika, was kind of a non-character. 悪いが文香人権なし。
 
Alize was a joke character, but her prescence was relevant in some places, like bringing together Elrise and Ryouji. Her combat arsenal was a needed contrast to everyone's else lack of magic-y and summon-y skills. I also thought her last fight in Elsrise's route was very tense and cornered, just like the rest of that extended battle.
It's also clear how much Alize and Elsrise care for each other. Alize is the one who helps Erise interact with the protagonist, and in Alize's route Elrise clearly shows an almost mother-like gaze on Alize and Ryouji.
 
Nothing to note about the other side heroines. I can't stand the Miko though. Not believable, frustration to watch, and indirectly screws over everyone else, if I recall correctly.
 
 
Addition comments on the Common route:
 
The common route had a large mystery component as the MC is gradually exposed to more and more raw information as he runs around trying to solve incidents.
I read some Japanese player's blog and agree with him on these points:
-The mystery-heavy common route is probably fun if you proactively sort through the presented information and come up with theories. However the problem here was the problems weren't captivating enough to keep the reader's attention.
-It was easy to fall behind in what was happening if you didn't pay attention. If you fell behind, you wouldn't get what was happening, the MC's objectives were, etc., and you'd probably just give up the damn thing.
 
The theories about people's psychology weren't as interesting as I was hoping. I think this was because there wasn't enough unique conflict to warrant discussion of the underlying psychology. There were some other notions that did get developed decently, though (see below).
 
 
On Gurenka and the concept of the Everyday
 
The everyday school scenes in Gurenka were merely passable. They didn't really serve a purpose or go anywhere. I get the feeling this is common of second-rate Visual Novels. The everyday scenes did ultimately produce the feeling of everyday school life with friends, I suppose.
 
There's a common topic that comes up in a lot of stories, and that is protecting one's everyday life. At one point the MC of Gurenka expresses his fears that their "everyday" was gradually being undermined by the Otherworld.
 
I'm don't really understand the notion wanting to protect the everyday life. In sounds like a vague, cool statement, to protect one everyday, but is that not misguided?
 
If people in your circle of friends is afflicted by hurt or hardship, then of course your everyday will start to crumble.
 
But it's not the "happy, carefree times" one should place first, but your friends. The truer aspiration is to support your friends through hardship and help them find happiness. It's possible to have an everyday where everyone *seems* happy and open, but holds their fears and regrets inside. [1]
 
It's quite human to take comfort in a current set of friends, with the unconscious notion that things will always remain like that. However, time is finite, and the time we have together is even more limited. Even the idea that the everyday is static is mistaken. The everyday we treasure is in fact constantly changing. [2]
 
Kuon also says something similiar, that she's become fond of this daily life and wishes to protect it. Amusingly, I find Kuon's statement a lot more convincing than Ryouji's.
She is speaking from the perspective a very-long lived person. She knows that the time she will spend with Ryouji is finite, and her wish to protect it is made on top of that awareness.
 
[1] This topic is awfully relevant to the light novel Utsuro no Hako no Maria.
[2] From the VN Semiramis no Tenbin. Yes that exact point. It was one of the many societal, psychological, and moral observations made by its characters during the VN.
 
 
The romance component of the game:
 
The romance component isn't deep in this game, what I mean by that there aren't that many satisfying romantic moments, and the romantic components aren't holding up the routes. The only appreciable romance in the game is between the MC and the two heroines Kuon and Elsrise.
 
Both the romances felt pretty short, but they both had an existing relationship that started developing way before they crossed the line of lovers. In the case of Kuon, more is depicted (compared to Elsrise) after the two become a couple.
 
Kuon's felt like a deep connection. Elsrise's felt like doting adoration, with the MC being carried along with the flow a bit. They weren't half bad, really.
 
 
The ideas expressed in the game:
 
I think there were a few themes that Gurenka utilized successfully, and that they led to some of the VN's more satisfiying experiences. They are:
 
- Nostalgia (The flashbacks, Kuon and Elsrise telling about their pasts)
- Frustration over unreasonable and unfair circumstances (Katsuragi-sensei, to a lesser degree the MC).
- Lamenting the past (Kuon, Elsrise, Haru-sensei)
 
The BGM really contributed to bringing out the nostalgia. It's a melancholic, slightly lonely nostaligia. The two non-human heriones feel like they've actually lived their pasts, and aren't just characters with the longevity "tag" tacked on.
 
 
Suggestions:
 
I'm going to consider Fumika's route a backstory route, as Fumika really doesn't develop or do anything during her route. Why does she even exist? God forbid if you were hoping for something.
 
Saori was decently established as a character.
Her route could have been made worthy if the themes were made stronger and more plot was involved.
 
Alize, though she's a bit of a joke character, had her roles. I would have welcomed learning more about the her nature and origin of her abilities.
It also would have been nice to have had more meaningful Elsrise/Alize and Kuon scenes. There weren't that many.
 
It's hard for me to suggest additional scenes in the routes because there were so few plot elements. On the character front, Kuon doesn't have any more to show; she only started to develop soon after she met Ryouji, and all the sides of her are shown. There also isn't any more interaction to be had between Elsrize and Kuon without introducing new elements to the story. If you boil it down, there's actually an unbelievably small amount of complexity/substance in the VN.
 
The most developed part of the VN was really Kuon and Elsrise's story. Kuon's route felt satisifiying because it finished explaining the past which involved both of them. Elsrise's route felt satisfying because of Elsrise's personality, her identity, and the satisfactory explanation of fights and the Otherworld following incidents. Both routes are where the "ideas" I mentioned earlier get evoked the most.
 
In that case, they could have just focused on this part of the story, and gotten rid of all the other routes except those two. The MC's backstory could have been slipped into Kuon's route, and Katsuragi-sensei's incident could have been put in Kuon's side of the common. Hell, I think Kuon should have been relevant for the MC coming to terms with his somewhat misfortunate past.
 
Final words:
 
All in all, Gurenka is a reasonably 'decent" game. The core story (Kuon and Elsrise's route, mostly Kuon's) is satisfying and enjoyable. The VN is just somewhat too long for what it's really about: the surrounding scenes and other routes, while interesting here and there, are lacking in substance. I have yet to see a game with youkai (or equivalent) heriones where the human routes are better. Demi-humans too strong?
 
I give Gurenka an 8 for the Kuon and Elsrise's route and 6 for the other routes.
 
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Other Misc. Thoughts: (In case you are interested in hearing even more of my rambling)