Mr Poltroon

Winged Cloud's girls-love focused dungeon crawler Sakura Dungeon packs in solid gameplay, decent characterization, and ample ero into a 20+ hr experience.
[In-Depth Review] Sakura Dungeon

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

Some people here already know that I hurt my knee falling down the stairs a while ago... what most of you don't know is that the stuff they have me on (non-narcotic pain drugs, sleep pills, and antibiotics) in combination make me a zombie for most of the day... I sleep around twelve hours a day, am fuzzy for two to three hours more, have to do rehab exercises for another two hours, and I spend around four hours of what is remaining working. 
Needless to say, this doesn't leave much time for anything else... which is why VN of the Month is so far behind.  Normally, by this point I would have played through at least four or five of the month's VNs, and I would probably be considering which one - if any - was worth the VN of the month rating... as it is, it has taken me a little over seventeen days to finish just two VNs from April's releases. 
I'm basically venting my frustration right now... since I lose money with every day I can't work at full capacity and I go a little more stir crazy with every day I can't go out and get some fresh air without using crutches.  For the first time in almost nine years, I actually had to use up my entire pay for a month for bills and food  (the medical bills being the highest, obviously). 
Needless to say, I'm in a sour mood.
If I seem harsh toward the remaining VNs this month, please forgive me.  It is really, really hard to concentrate outside of work right now... and I'm actually having to reconsider a lot of my plans for the rest of the year based on the costs I project for the rest of the next few months.  Nothing pisses me off more than being unable to rectify everyday money problems (which is why I work so much normally)....
Anyway, that's enough moaning from me for now.  The two key points are that the above are the reasons VN of the Month is so far behind and I so rarely post, despite the fact that I'm technically 'online' (I rarely if ever shut down the fuwanovel tab, lol) all the time.  If I'm slow to respond, it is because I'm not myself, not because I'm not interested in doing so.

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

DISCLAIMER: All that I mention represent my views mixed with basic scientific theories floating around.
To 'Love', and to be 'In Love'
I believe these two to be different. One does not necessarily love those they are in love with, and one is not necessarily in love with those they love. Sound confusing? Allow me to elaborate.
To make this as clear as possible, let's take "romantic feelings" out of the equation.
Would you say you love your parents? Or that you are in love with them? Maybe both expressions work for you?
The way I see it, one (generally) loves their family, yet is not in love of them.
To be in love with someone is the sort of feeling you have towards a crush, that almost irrational slight obsession and redirection of your thoughts in their general direction. Perhaps your heart will beat faster, perhaps you will become slightly euphoric, perhaps you'll get embarrassed; all just by being near the person in question.
What I've just described most certainly does not apply towards your parents (unless you're into some really weird nukige). But you still love them, right? You act kind towards them, you are affectionate with them, you take their presence for granted and would sacrifice immensely for their sake.
Mayhap, this even applies to your friends? Friendship love. You see it all the time in manga, girls loving each other, but not being in love with each other. You care for your friends much like they care for you.
Finally, for all you older folk out there, if you're a parent: would you say you love your children, or that you are in love with them? Because if it's the latter, that would make you the worst kind of scum in the eyes of society.
Only when it comes to romance do these two things get interwoven together. Love is a complicated mess, which I will now attempt to arbitrarily classify in a way that makes sense to me.
All the previously mentioned situations represent love, yet they are different from falling "in love".
As you know, or should know, humans are animals, they are living beings whose purpose is to live. All animals, all plants and all living beings have that very same objective, and they evolve and adapt in order to make sure their species continues to live. One important thing about being a living being is our instinctual desire to reproduce. If we didn't reproduce, the species would go extinct - Giant Pandas are the resident experts on the topic.
In order to compel the race to reproduce, our body releases various hormones impelling us to do various things. Falling "in love" is one of these.
You'll find that often, the person you develop romantic feelings for, is not one that is particularly close to you. This is what I believe being "in love" is. When you develop feelings for a person, which serves as the selfish catalyst that leads to romance.
Having fallen in love, we humans do a bunch of silly things involving spending time with our pleasurable partner, which makes us happy (due to the hormones), and containing our sexual desires, which are also stimulated by the hormones. Probably not the most romantic way of looking at it, but "falling in love" is a mere boost towards romantic love, but I do not think it is romantic love itself. On the contrary, trying to resist this "in love" feeling is, quite literally, against our instincts. Thankfully, human beings are, for the most part, able to resist their instincts given that their conditions are favourable. If everyone ended up marrying their first love, society would be rather different than what it is right now.
Now then, I keep mentioning "romantic love", as if it weren't influenced by hormones. Really, you can say that just about anything is influenced by hormones and this is no exception. The usual situation will be for one to develop a romantic relationship with the one they fell in love with. In turn, this "in love" boost will eventually die down leaving you only with a person that you are intimate with, that you share your flaws with, that you care for... and your sexual partner. Sex is yet another source of rather pleasurable hormones, and one important for long-lasting relationships. After all, a proper relationship requires sacrifices, and most of us selfish humans wouldn't be all that interested in maintaining a relationship for little reward.
This is, of course, another of our instinct's plans. If a couple doesn't stay together and does not reproduce, then the whole "falling in love" business will end up having been useless.
All this said, let us surmise:
Because of our innate need to reproduce, we fall in love. Falling in love gives us a boost and creates an easy path that will lead to loving someone. Eventually, this boost dies down - at this point, a good couple would love each other as is (or else, divorce. Good lord, today's society...), with the help of sex. The pleasure sex provides creates hormones that increase our affection for our partner and that generally makes us interested in sex, connecting directly to our species' main goal: Children.
The way we look at it today, everybody wants to be with those they're in love with, and lose interest when the magic of "falling in love" dies down. I, however, firmly believe that people are able to love even those they are not in love with... provided the circumstances aren't dead set against you. The main example I wanted to tie this uncultured rant to is this relationship I saw in Ao Haru Ride...
 
I'll elucidate you right off the bat: I didn't like Ao Haru Ride as a story. This does not, however, mean that it was bad. In fact, it gave me enough food for thought to write this whole pointless blog post because of it.
In Ao Haru Ride, because both our protagonists fail to act on their feelings in a timely manner because "emotions", they, despite loving each other, end up entering a relationship with someone else. Spoilers ahead.
Futaba is our main protagonist, and she clearly falls in love with Kou in the first few chapters. This Kou fellow is the main love interest, who is also in love with Futaba, but who, due to circumstances and "emotions", rejects her advances. Seeing this, another boy, called Touma, felt bad for Futaba, and this kickstarted his feelings, leading him to fall in love with her. Eventually, Futaba, seeing Touma's dedication and depictions of love, enters a relationship with him and tries to love him back.
Given this scene, Kou, jealous, surpasses his "circumstances" and "emotions" and tries to win Futaba back. Futaba, on the other hand, doesn't want this. She is not aware of Kou's feelings and really wants to love Touma back - something I consider a most earnest and great wish. However, because that's just the way things are, Futaba is unable to love Touma whilst in love with someone else, and she wouldn't stop being in love so long as Kou didn't stop - and he had no intention of stopping.
Therefore, Futaba breaks up with Touma and gets together with Kou. Happy end.
This entire turn of events depresses me. I dislike when a main character enters a relationship which just wont last. Totally not the kind of stuff I read manga for. I really hate how she spent most of the manga dating someone who is not the main love interest and the one she'll end up with.
Yet, it does bring something to the table I really admired, and those were Futaba's attempts at loving Touma back, even when she wasn't in love with him. People these days always seem to think that they should marry someone they're in love with and whatnot - when I'm a fervent believer that anyone is able to romantically love even those they aren't in love with. Still, even still, we're wired in such a way that we're rather likely to fall in love with those we attempt to love, anyway, so it's almost a moot point.
I believe that what Futaba tried to achieve is one of the most idealistic, selfless and admirable forms of love - though that's precisely why it doesn't happen often. It is, after all, much more convenient to just love those you are in love with
This is why historical romances interest me so. They're about loving the husband or wife that was arranged for you by your family and not by your hormones (who choose based on what amounts to a whim).
 
But then again... what the hell do I know about love?

Did I say shoujo? I meant just about every sodding romance manga.
Back when I started reading manga, most of what I read were shoujo manga's. Very, very long shoujo manga where the couple only get together at the very end, if at all.
Whilst I nowadays stand against this practice, for reasons I will later disclose, I can understand how one would enjoy the "dramatic" situations, "romantic" moments, standard "comedy", and stories about friendship and high school experiences. What I just described composes 90% of all manga I've read. After all, these elements are to my taste.
Unless done badly, as they are many a time. Typical plot development goes something like this:
Female Protagonist is a loner or has bad friends. Love interest resolves these issues. Alternatively, skip step one and start with good friends already. Because of some random event or plot convenience, the Female Protagonist is either attracted to or forced to interact with Love Interest. Tales of Friendship and slightly romantic events ensue. Eventually, one (or both) of them realise how close they've become, and consequently act overly conscious. This leads to their partner misunderstanding the situation. Somehow, the issue is resolved, and the couple grows closer still. When things are looking particularly good for our couple, the love rival arrives, and somehow makes more progress in two chapters than the main couple in twenty. Misunderstandings ensue. They clarify the misunderstanding, still, some other event causes yet another. Rinse and Repeat. (Optional) The couple actually enters a relationship. Done well, I can live with it. After the initial misunderstandings, it's only natural for the couple to realise how much they actually care for each other and confess. But that's not how it goes in manga. Oh, no. The only ones they are fooling is themselves Scratch that, They aren't even fooling themselves. After a certain point, the main couple is very much in love, and very much care for each other. Yet, for some mind-boggling reason, the author must find a way to ensure they are not in any condition to confess, either due to unforeseeable or uncontrollable circumstances, or because of some incomprehensible misunderstanding that always pops up at that opportune moment for a confession.
This can still be done well, assuming I'm not reading a 200 chapter manga. But guess what? A great deal of manga prefer to be segmented into smaller chapters with a spread out story; and it shows. I can hardly imagine the amount of money the mangaka would lose if they condensed their "150 chapter" manga into a measly 40. What if instead of having a new misunderstanding crop up every couple of chapters, they actually acted on their feelings? Boring. It'd end in no time at all. Because, as should be obvious, it must end after the confession. Any more than that and you're into blasphemous territory.
I kid. If the manga has the guts to progress past the confession, I will almost certainly enjoy it. So those aren't the ones I'm fulminating against. If out of 100 chapters, 40 of them involve an after confession relationship, then you get my seal of approval. Go ask Kimi ni Todoke (which, for some reason, just refuses to end).
Back into our slow romances, I can't claim to be particularly satisfied when out of over 200 chapters, only about a couple of them involve an official relationship. Looking at you, Mr. Hana yori Dango. Then perhaps something more accessible, say, about 88 chapters, would be better? Shiawase Kissa 3-choume didn't bother to grace us with so much as a kiss, so I'm not sure about that (not that a kiss is necessary in a romance - CLANNAD knows what's up).
If you want a slow romance done well, follow Cross Game's example: Make it more of a side thing that's continuously going on, but don't ride the plot on it. Until an official relationship is established, romance doesn't make for all that strong a mount. Don't like sports? You prefer more "shoujo-like" topics, like friendship and goodness? Fruits Basket has you covered.
Though I guess those are kind of avoiding the issue. Can you make something almost purely romantic entertaining, even if there's no official relationship? Dengeki Daisy says yes. Even if it's about 100 chapters? "Why not?" answers Kaichou wa Maid-sama.
Clearly it can be done well. This all on the table, can someone explain to me how the highly rated Ao Haru Ride manages to be one of the most irritating romance manga I've read? It has a quarter of Hana yori Dango's size and triple the pointless drama! In one chapter, the couple (who still hasn't confessed to each other) go from kissing to having the biggest distance between them yet. And things just keep getting worse and worse. Despite how literally everyone, including themselves, know they love each other.
This whole manga is very painful to digest as is, so I had to go add copious amounts of . It should now be fine.

As it happens, my younger sister had to write a text for a Portuguese test, and I like it. Therefore, I translated it (probably not too well) and decided to read it aloud. In both languages:
There exist various characteristics that can be considered crucial for surpassing the most difficult difficulties and reaching the most faraway goals.
For an argument as simple as "Attempt, be daring, be courageous and persevere", many will ignore it outright. After all, just because we try to do something, just because we are stubborn, we do not obtain instant results. Various situations are, clearly, impossible. To this, there's nothing I can do but point toward the history of this country.
How many times has Portugal not achieved the impossible? A mere county, led by a teenager, becomes a country among countries triple, quadruple its size, fighting against Moors and Castilian Kings. One of Europe's smallest countries was given half the world by the Pope. A country in plain dictatorship, achieves a revolution without a single casualty.
I understand that some may not believe that tenacity and audacity enable the impossible, but something I can guarantee: Without attempt, there will be no success.
----
  Existem várias características que podem ser consideradas cruciais para ultrapassar as mais diffíceis dificuldades e alcançar os mais longínquos objetivos.
   Para um argumento tão simples como "Tenta, sê ousado, sê corajoso e persevera", muitos ignorá-lo-ão de imediato. Afinal, só por tentarmos fazer algo, só por sermos teimosos, não obtemos resultados de imediato. Várias situações são, claramente, impossíveis. A isto, nada posso responder senão apontar para a história deste país.
   Quantas vezes não realizou Portugal o impossível? Um mero condado, liderado por um adolescente, torna-se num país entre países com o triplo, o quádruplo do seu tamanho, lutando contra mouros e reis castelhanos. Um dos países mais pequenos da Europa recebeu metade do mundo do Papa. Um país em plena ditadura, realiza uma revolução sem um único ferido.
   Compreendo que alguns não acreditem que tenacidade e ousadia permitam o impossível, mas algo posso garantir: Sem tentativa, não haverá successo de forma alguma.
-M.F.V. (Poltroon)
 
 

As it happens, my younger sister had to write a text for a Portuguese test, and I like it. Therefore, I translated it (probably not too well) and decided to read it aloud. In both languages:
There exist various characteristics that can be considered crucial for surpassing the most difficult difficulties and reaching the most faraway goals.
For an argument as simple as "Attempt, be daring, be courageous and persevere", many will ignore it outright. After all, just because we try to do something, just because we are stubborn, we do not obtain instant results. Various situations are, clearly, impossible. To this, there's nothing I can do but point toward the history of this country.
How many times has Portugal not achieved the impossible? A mere county, led by a teenager, becomes a country among countries triple, quadruple its size, fighting against Moors and Castilian Kings. One of Europe's smallest countries was given half the world by the Pope. A country in plain dictatorship, achieves a revolution without a single casualty.
I understand that some may not believe that tenacity and audacity enable the impossible, but something I can guarantee: Without attempt, there will be no success.
----
  Existem várias características que podem ser consideradas cruciais para ultrapassar as mais diffíceis dificuldades e alcançar os mais longínquos objetivos.
   Para um argumento tão simples como "Tenta, sê ousado, sê corajoso e persevera", muitos ignorá-lo-ão de imediato. Afinal, só por tentarmos fazer algo, só por sermos teimosos, não obtemos resultados de imediato. Várias situações são, claramente, impossíveis. A isto, nada posso responder senão apontar para a história deste país.
   Quantas vezes não realizou Portugal o impossível? Um mero condado, liderado por um adolescente, torna-se num país entre países com o triplo, o quádruplo do seu tamanho, lutando contra mouros e reis castelhanos. Um dos países mais pequenos da Europa recebeu metade do mundo do Papa. Um país em plena ditadura, realiza uma revolução sem um único ferido.
   Compreendo que alguns não acreditem que tenacidade e ousadia permitam o impossível, mas algo posso garantir: Sem tentativa, não haverá successo de forma alguma.
-M.F.V. (Poltroon)
 
 

As it happens, my younger sister had to write a text for a Portuguese test, and I like it. Therefore, I translated it (probably not too well) and decided to read it aloud. In both languages:
There exist various characteristics that can be considered crucial for surpassing the most difficult difficulties and reaching the most faraway goals.
For an argument as simple as "Attempt, be daring, be courageous and persevere", many will ignore it outright. After all, just because we try to do something, just because we are stubborn, we do not obtain instant results. Various situations are, clearly, impossible. To this, there's nothing I can do but point toward the history of this country.
How many times has Portugal not achieved the impossible? A mere county, led by a teenager, becomes a country among countries triple, quadruple its size, fighting against Moors and Castilian Kings. One of Europe's smallest countries was given half the world by the Pope. A country in plain dictatorship, achieves a revolution without a single casualty.
I understand that some may not believe that tenacity and audacity enable the impossible, but something I can guarantee: Without attempt, there will be no success.
----
  Existem várias características que podem ser consideradas cruciais para ultrapassar as mais diffíceis dificuldades e alcançar os mais longínquos objetivos.
   Para um argumento tão simples como "Tenta, sê ousado, sê corajoso e persevera", muitos ignorá-lo-ão de imediato. Afinal, só por tentarmos fazer algo, só por sermos teimosos, não obtemos resultados de imediato. Várias situações são, claramente, impossíveis. A isto, nada posso responder senão apontar para a história deste país.
   Quantas vezes não realizou Portugal o impossível? Um mero condado, liderado por um adolescente, torna-se num país entre países com o triplo, o quádruplo do seu tamanho, lutando contra mouros e reis castelhanos. Um dos países mais pequenos da Europa recebeu metade do mundo do Papa. Um país em plena ditadura, realiza uma revolução sem um único ferido.
   Compreendo que alguns não acreditem que tenacidade e ousadia permitam o impossível, mas algo posso garantir: Sem tentativa, não haverá successo de forma alguma.
-M.F.V. (Poltroon)
 
 

You can find the original post here: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/12218-gahkthun-of-the-golden-lightning-released/?do=findComment&comment=379071
In a timely reply to Eclipsed's pertinent question.
----
When I first started this VN, I'll admit, I had high hopes.
To start with, it had Koestl as a translator, and his translation of Grisaia no Kajitsu very much made for half the VN's greatness. In my eyes, he proved himself as entirely capable of "translating", a broad term that can mean anything from converting a bunch of words from a language into appropriate synonyms of another language; to picking up the meaning of a sentence or paragraph and rewriting it in another language whilst attempting to maintain the same style, word usage and meaning. I'm specifically referring to the latter here: For examples, check many of Grisaia's word puns, language usage and referential/cultural jokes which, in the hands of many other translators, would have lost their significance in a western language.
I was not disappointed on this front. I do not know the Japanese language. I could not possibly know (much like with Grisaia) whether the speech style, narration style, word usage, terminology or what have you has been faithfully translated. What I can vouch for is that it's certainly a cohesive, natural and, to many, I'm sure, beautiful work in its own right. I'm not here to debate whether "Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning" is Sakurai's story that has been respectfully converted into our language, or merely Koestl's modified copy. I'm here to state that, so far as I believe, "Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning" is a wonderfully written story. The English is phenomenal, in that it is anything beyond what I could ever write, has a vocabulary that is evidently larger than my own and, all throughout, the various stylistic choices make sense in context and work to make an entire cohesive, natural and beautiful work.
Take this with as many grains of salt as you will, for I am not a native, nor have I ever read anything beyond the standard fare of Visual Novels, which certainly don't even compare. Most of what I've read does not even try to be written this way.
That's a good point. What do I even mean by "written this way"? I find myself at a loss when asked to describe the writing style, so I'll instead broach my thoughts and opinions on the various aspects of the writing. From here on out, expect spoilers.
Narration. Three chapters into this VN and I'd put it on the back burner. The VN itself was not bad, but there were things that very much irked me. Not the last of which was the omniscient narrator. Mind you, by themselves, I actually prefer a narrator who is aware of everything, who can describe everything with a degree of accuracy. What I hate, what I despise, is this characteristic combined with various others: Contradiction of facts for emphasis, his omniscience conveniently fails where the situation is most dire, for emphasis, repetition of the same sentences with slight or hardly any alteration, and hyperboles and metaphors.
I'll try to exemplify these:
The many times Tesla dodged undodgeable attacks, or avoided unavoidable contraptions. A quote where there were "Ten, twenty, thirty... countless numbers of knives were launched toward him."  is the first to spring to mind.
You'll notice these hardly qualify as bad writing or anything even remotely close. These are nothing but my own personal preference and I hate every last one of these writing tropes. It's these, in tandem with my general disinterest toward descriptions of battle where most of it is so hyperbolic that it's not possible for me to picture... that made me skip most action/battle scenes. Not just in Gahkthun, either. In Muv-Luv Alternative, in Rewrite, in Fate/Stay: Night, Tsukihime may forever burn in hell for it, and I couldn't even read more than an hour of I/O: revision II - I still don't know what this one's about, only that the writing made me steer bloody clear of it. I want to make lucid I am not absolutely bonkers and contradicting what I've said just earlier: The writing is indeed exceptional. Everything else but these literary devices were parts I loved, and I'm pretty sure that, to just about anyone else, what I've pointed out aren't even flaws, but commendable use of the language.
After later on being urged to continue reading by multiple users of Fuwanovel itself, I ended up continuing the visual novel, and by no means did I regret it. Some of the literary devices I actually came to find quite charming: "Of the many rumours surrounding the Governing Council, this is one of the very few that happens to be true." x12 - Not that I really know much about writing or its devices. This "omniscient" narrator and blatant contradiction of previously stated facts can actually be used in a rather effective way, methinks. The way the narrator constantly switches with a characters inner monologue is effective. Very much so. It goes a long way to accurately represent the panic, confusion and emotional strife of a character, when we are given such a glaring contrast between narration styles... I can say it was highly effective with me. I could also tolerate the highly hyperbolic descriptions because of how... ridiculous the setting is as a whole. I would actually not be surprised if Nightingale had died a thousand times just by being looked at by... murderous red eyes in the sky.
Another peculiar thing about the structure of the story, and this goes on to connect with the story and plot more than the writing itself, are the exercises for the reader - or fairytales.
This Visual Novel is divided into twelve chapters. Each chapter starts with a small introduction, it either expands the setting, introduces new characters or starts smack dab in the middle of an already ongoing plot. When the VN first threw these "reading exercises" at my face I was pretty... intrigued. How weird. Such a strange way to tell a story. What's their purpose? What do they do? Initially, I was quite confused. They were minimalistic, and, more often than not, they seemed to have no real correlation to anything that was going on. How ignorant I was. How foolish of me. There were two aspects I was particularly fond of:
These exercises, as a whole, required input from the player, and I believe that, for the most part, all of them tried to teach something. To showcase various paths for radiance. And let it be known, radiance, despite the name and main theme behind Tesla, does not always imply good and just. I'll come back to this later.
The second part I really liked is how effective they turned out to be with me. I cried various times over the course of the VN, probably four or thereabout. The smashing majority were during these exercises. The music and the minimalistic images joined together, the narration and context derived from the main story itself, they come together and fill in all the holes forming a wonderful and emotional tale. The main story shows you the present, which you deem mostly incomprehensible a great deal the time, or fail to understand the context. Afterward, or sometimes in the very middle of what appears to be the climax, these calm, relaxing exercises suddenly appear and fill in all the holes. You learn the motivations. You relate the exercise characters to the real characters, you find out their past through this, and it is altogether more effective than flat out stating it all.
These brought their own problems. After learning of the nature of these exercises, you start to spot patterns and can immediately deduce who the story will focus on within the first few minutes: See Émile's chapter with Louis-Charles. On the other hand, this can still be used effectively to induce false conclusions. See Berta's chapter - the exercises lead us to believe she is the woman in question (and in turn, may render the "she's actually female" reveal, rather stale) when she is actually her daughter. Not much of a twist, but it does show the writer was probably well aware of the flaw, with how they toy with is like this.
Moving on from the reading exercises, I'll continue with the setting.
I found it rather interesting if a bit depressing with a tinge of hopefulness. A Steampunk setting doesn't really speak to me. I have no strong opinions either way. Since this is a Steampunk setting and I'm not interested either way, that's out in regards as to why I found it interesting. This leaves an alternate history setting, which I liked, and copious amounts of references to a living, breathing world out there all throughout the story. Situations like Holmes existing, various historical personages with their own roles in history and my very own dictionary with a good deal of backstory all within. Add to all this how the characters and omniscient narrator refer to previous events constantly, things we don't know about, things we might have known about, were we an actual character in the story, and this works wonders for immersion.
Of course, hating all things "bad" and "evil" like I do, I was very much saddened at the polluted and irreversible society they lived in. Also not a fan of how most of the "new" technology were things that have only recently been invented or things we can't even mimic with today's technology: See all the giant robots, androids and machines that make you learn on your own (I am guessing they were actually effective beyond being used for the chairman's schemes, here).
As for the plot, I can say I  actually didn't see it going anywhere far, which is why the last three or so chapters surprised me. For the first few chapters, I thought every chapter we'd get new characters and solve a mystery and help people. Of course, this sort of come and go episodic format doesn't do much for plot, unless they are all connected, and they certainly didn't seem all that connected, early on. I would actually have been fine if it kept up until the end. I liked the format and the various little stories. To me that was fine. But in those last three chapters they picked up the slack, kicked up the drama a notch, let the big bad go free, and made one of those "all those you've helped in the past band together and (in soviet russia) help you" sort of stories. Being a sucker for that sort of thing, I was rather satisfied. Of course, given how the VN had thus far focused the climaxes on the battles, It was rather anti-climatic when Tesla insta-kills the big bad after reuniting with Neon. Turns out the zenith of the chapter had been her trip to Tesla, not the fight itself.
To go into further details, I feel I should focus on the characters and their respective chapters.
Starting with Tesla. Because the narrator does not lie (even though he is omniscient: Umineko could stand to learn a few things about not lying to the reader in a mystery), we know right from the start that most of his claims are true, his true nature is one who does not lie, one who pursues justice, one who fights evil. We can also plainly see he is arrogant, brutally honest, curt and that he does not mince words. All of these are pluses to me, provided the arrogance has justification - which it does - in both skill and age. Speaking of age, given how he cannot lie, why is it that he was able to declare he was younger than he actually was? Whilst this made for a small comedic gag about not wanting to seem too old, I don't deem it as worth breaking character or principles for.
Tesla makes, therefore, for one of my favourite male characters to speak of, in ideals and personality both.
If I had to find a negative, him deciding he would need to atone for his existence with Neon, that he caused her love life such unnecessary strife because of his predetermined decision... would be my main flaw. Had he simply said, "My existence caused their deaths; by the time I found out, it was already to late.", had he simply explained the circumstances... the whole final chapter could have been avoided, really. Optimal scenario doesn't really make for much of a story, I suppose.
Surprisingly enough, Neon's friends did not get much in the way of development.
We know a bit about Annabeth's father and her methods as well of personality. Of Neon's friends, she was the one who appeared the most. Not that that helped me understand what her relation with JJ actually was, in the end.
We never did get to find out Izumi's secret with the "headband" and tail, though foreshadowing made it obvious enough.
Poor Albert was hardly present. At least JJ and Louis-Charles had chapters where they could be present more often, but no such mercy for Albert. Being kicked out of the beach chapter deeply hurt his overall presence in the VN.
These general characters mentioned, I believe I should get some order around here and backtrack all the way to the first chapter... To the very start of the Visual Novel.
It certainly knew how to make an impression. We start playing as this seemingly nice girl who goes to school and appears to be awfully shy... only to find out her real circumstances aren't anything so nice. We see her deluding herself, all in an attempt to stay at this academy for reasons yet unknown. All we know is that she had to, somehow. We slowly, or maybe rather quickly, see her breaking down, no matter what she herself claimed. We see the nature of the people she is dealing with. When, after a long, long, while, we see that she lost her highly unstable job, and that her boss was quite indeed on the verge of coming on top of her...
It ends.
I'm not sure if that's where the chapter ends, but I do know that the story perspective stops there, and we don't find out exactly what took place until... the bloody final chapter. I'll give you this: There's no reason we couldn't have found out about what happened earlier... but I guess it's fine.
From here we see Neon in a rather shameless position for a while and are introduced to our main character, where he does a wonderful job showcasing the traits I've referred to above. Also, Jelly Beans - we'll come back to those. Speaking of things we'll come back to, try not to forget about the various "Q:"s we were put through at the start.
Chapter 2 - or are we still in chapter 1? - does some things I very much enjoyed. After that dark and demoralising first impression, we are introduced to the hero who fixes everything, and he did fix everything, and this touched some of my favourite situations in media: A slave being given freedom or being treated like a human. It is actually rather strange how she found the audacity to complain at her new "Master" about all sorts of things...
That aside, this chapter (or is it the next one?) includes the very first battle in the VN, with Walther. I wasn't really a fan of it, at all. Sure, I like to see overpowered characters using highly exaggerated powers with silly names as much as the next guy, but this is assuming the next guy doesn't like them much. On the other hand, I came to like Walther himself. The character we see here, this terrible first impression he gives us as... plainly evil, really... it disappears. Or at least, over the course of the visual novel, in the incredibly brief appearances he made over the course of the rest of the visual novel, my animosity toward him just simply up and vanished, getting replaced with love, of all things! By the time I got to the end I loved the guy, and it really is mysterious how it all came to be. Perhaps there's something wrong with my head, besides the obvious?
It was in some random scene after this point that I temporarily halted the VN. When I got back to it, I found myself in Odile's chapter. This is the point where I thought I'd figured out the VN's structure with the various exercises for the reader and "mystery of the week" format. For the chapter itself, I don't have much in the way of impressions, beyond this being the first point in time Neon struck me as remotely interesting. More specifically, in the manner which she manages to read the emotions of a person somewhat accurately. Perhaps I like this trait because I'm a dimwit at it myself?
Next up was probably Anne's, the iron lady's, chapter. Each chapter shows us a different form of radiance, some more twisted than others, and Anne's? Anne's radiance seemed to be in the right place all the way through. She simply needed to be more aware she cannot be an iron lady toward everything, all the time, no matter how much she wishes it. This chapter focused on showing us the various other sides of the Marshal and revealing a bit of JJ's backstory. All in all, I liked it. She seemed to have something going on with JJ, but we never saw anything too informative, so I suppose it'll forever remain a mystery. Not even our "omniscient" narrator seemed to be fully aware of it.
Berta's chapter was set up to be the silliest thing yet. The story decided to break the rules of its own setting - or perhaps better put, take advantage of the Academia's constant bending of them - and include a beach episode. It can be said it most certainly came out of the left field. It was nevertheless appreciated: The reader mostly follows Tesla's point of view, and for good reason. The many lines he spouts during these scenes made some quite gold material. The whole love drama with Jo was entirely dispensable... but let's focus on what I really loved about this chapter: The reading exercises.
The story they told caused many a tear to jump out from my eyes. I can only assume this VN is so overpowered it gushed dust particles in my general direction during these scenes. Either that, or these scenes touched on the right subjects for me, those being family, bonds, and love. I may or may not a have bawled a bit. I didn't quite understand all that much about her whole plot for revenge... I'm just glad she came to her senses in the end. I felt satisfied after finishing this chapter. From here on I was actually rather captivated for every scene about the council, as more and more of the members came to change their views and thoughts.
Next up was Émile's chapter, which is also where I first understood how there were many sorts of radiance. Her thoughts and beliefs on how a ruler should behave, they all... seemed correct to me. And yet, simultaneously... no human being should have to be put through that. No friends, no emotions, no impartiality... that's what Tesla was trying to point out about her radiance. This is all the more amazing when you consider he's doing precisely the same thing, Tesla, by taking all burden up himself, so that others may live unhindered. Really makes you think about the many kinds of "radiance" out there. What is "just", what is "good", what is "tastiest? Chocolate or Jelly Beans?" This made the entire chapter interesting to me, this battle of ideals. I ended up really liking the resolution, with her "friend" trying to reach out to her, and said friend being helped by her own friends to do it. This is the point in the VN where I liked Neon the most, a girl who is perceptive with others' emotions, and believes in her friends through it all. Louis-Charles also got most of his development from Émile's chapter, not that I ever cared about him, much.
Chapter 9, or whatever that really short chapter with the gate to hell was, is what I considered filler with a capital F, at First. Upon thinking about it further, even though it had no connection with everything else that was going on in the background, it showed some really good sides of Neon. Her ability to trust Tesla with all her heart, enough to put herself in harm's way just to help a random student, I loved that. Her apparent "No big deal, but would you kindly get rid of the monster now? It's trying to molest me, here." attitude also made for a rather amusing scene.
Jo's chapter wasn't too interesting by my standards. I was unable to understand the conflict, and Neon's jealously irked me so. Still, I am a fan of mentally broken characters, especially when they come to heal, so I manage to salvage some enjoyment out of this chapter.
From here, we go on to the big final chapters, and this is where everything culminated. It is almost strange how they managed to address so many plot points then and there. Why the Chateu d'if (or whatever the name is) was one of the first things present on the island, why the students were so easily manipulated, Tesla's backstory, and many other things. If I were to speak of what I liked? Anything after Neon regained here memories. What I disliked? Anything involving Neon before that point. How all the governing council members were related, plus Neon and the society member, is probably the most difficult thing to believe. In my eyes, that was entirely unnecessary. It would have been fine if only Neon was related, but everyone? A wee bit too much, I thought.
A few more random impressions on the finale: Wilhelm's (...or was it Reich?) fall from glory happened far too fast, and we didn't get to see him until the end, where he still hadn't learnt his lesson. The big bad was about as absurd as expected. Florence never had a real chance to show off her powers, what with getting killed thousands of times over by the second. Tesla and Smilja's backstory really was the best here, it let me cry a bit more. Remember the Jelly Beans? Oh, so that's why. Remember the questions the game posed at the start? What do you think, now that you had time to think it over?
The very best part was, as I've said over and over, Neon recovering her memories... for no apparent reason, actually; and going on her trip to save Tesla. Meeting all the people you've seen over the course of this VN, if only for the briefest of moments, to the sound of epic music, was epic in and of itself.
...I believe that is all I wanted to say. My impressions of this VN were mostly positive, and the finale succeeded in captivating and satisfying me. There is nothing else I could ask of a story. Since I don't want to offend certain people, certain dice, I won't put a numerical value that can be easily spotted from far away, and instead I'll say that it's a nine out of ten, and hide away in an unimportant corner most people won't ever bother reading. The best place to hide a tree is a forest, after all.
 
This was the original conclusion to my post, for those interested:
This VN is a bad VN. I wanted it to end a certain way and it didn't. I wanted it to have routes and it didn't. I didn't like some of the purposeful choices in narration. Some sprites and CG's were disproportionate and the UI and menus did not feel smooth as butter. 4/10 VN.
 
Final note:
While writing this I had a desk lamp next to me, pointed at some work I was supposed to have been doing, and every time I got up I seemed to get hit by said lamp. So I decided to make a counter for it.
Hit my head on lamp count: 6
 
Post Scriptum Final Notum:

You can find the original post here: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/12218-gahkthun-of-the-golden-lightning-released/?do=findComment&comment=379071
In a timely reply to Eclipsed's pertinent question.
----
When I first started this VN, I'll admit, I had high hopes.
To start with, it had Koestl as a translator, and his translation of Grisaia no Kajitsu very much made for half the VN's greatness. In my eyes, he proved himself as entirely capable of "translating", a broad term that can mean anything from converting a bunch of words from a language into appropriate synonyms of another language; to picking up the meaning of a sentence or paragraph and rewriting it in another language whilst attempting to maintain the same style, word usage and meaning. I'm specifically referring to the latter here: For examples, check many of Grisaia's word puns, language usage and referential/cultural jokes which, in the hands of many other translators, would have lost their significance in a western language.
I was not disappointed on this front. I do not know the Japanese language. I could not possibly know (much like with Grisaia) whether the speech style, narration style, word usage, terminology or what have you has been faithfully translated. What I can vouch for is that it's certainly a cohesive, natural and, to many, I'm sure, beautiful work in its own right. I'm not here to debate whether "Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning" is Sakurai's story that has been respectfully converted into our language, or merely Koestl's modified copy. I'm here to state that, so far as I believe, "Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning" is a wonderfully written story. The English is phenomenal, in that it is anything beyond what I could ever write, has a vocabulary that is evidently larger than my own and, all throughout, the various stylistic choices make sense in context and work to make an entire cohesive, natural and beautiful work.
Take this with as many grains of salt as you will, for I am not a native, nor have I ever read anything beyond the standard fare of Visual Novels, which certainly don't even compare. Most of what I've read does not even try to be written this way.
That's a good point. What do I even mean by "written this way"? I find myself at a loss when asked to describe the writing style, so I'll instead broach my thoughts and opinions on the various aspects of the writing. From here on out, expect spoilers.
Narration. Three chapters into this VN and I'd put it on the back burner. The VN itself was not bad, but there were things that very much irked me. Not the last of which was the omniscient narrator. Mind you, by themselves, I actually prefer a narrator who is aware of everything, who can describe everything with a degree of accuracy. What I hate, what I despise, is this characteristic combined with various others: Contradiction of facts for emphasis, his omniscience conveniently fails where the situation is most dire, for emphasis, repetition of the same sentences with slight or hardly any alteration, and hyperboles and metaphors.
I'll try to exemplify these:
The many times Tesla dodged undodgeable attacks, or avoided unavoidable contraptions. A quote where there were "Ten, twenty, thirty... countless numbers of knives were launched toward him."  is the first to spring to mind.
You'll notice these hardly qualify as bad writing or anything even remotely close. These are nothing but my own personal preference and I hate every last one of these writing tropes. It's these, in tandem with my general disinterest toward descriptions of battle where most of it is so hyperbolic that it's not possible for me to picture... that made me skip most action/battle scenes. Not just in Gahkthun, either. In Muv-Luv Alternative, in Rewrite, in Fate/Stay: Night, Tsukihime may forever burn in hell for it, and I couldn't even read more than an hour of I/O: revision II - I still don't know what this one's about, only that the writing made me steer bloody clear of it. I want to make lucid I am not absolutely bonkers and contradicting what I've said just earlier: The writing is indeed exceptional. Everything else but these literary devices were parts I loved, and I'm pretty sure that, to just about anyone else, what I've pointed out aren't even flaws, but commendable use of the language.
After later on being urged to continue reading by multiple users of Fuwanovel itself, I ended up continuing the visual novel, and by no means did I regret it. Some of the literary devices I actually came to find quite charming: "Of the many rumours surrounding the Governing Council, this is one of the very few that happens to be true." x12 - Not that I really know much about writing or its devices. This "omniscient" narrator and blatant contradiction of previously stated facts can actually be used in a rather effective way, methinks. The way the narrator constantly switches with a characters inner monologue is effective. Very much so. It goes a long way to accurately represent the panic, confusion and emotional strife of a character, when we are given such a glaring contrast between narration styles... I can say it was highly effective with me. I could also tolerate the highly hyperbolic descriptions because of how... ridiculous the setting is as a whole. I would actually not be surprised if Nightingale had died a thousand times just by being looked at by... murderous red eyes in the sky.
Another peculiar thing about the structure of the story, and this goes on to connect with the story and plot more than the writing itself, are the exercises for the reader - or fairytales.
This Visual Novel is divided into twelve chapters. Each chapter starts with a small introduction, it either expands the setting, introduces new characters or starts smack dab in the middle of an already ongoing plot. When the VN first threw these "reading exercises" at my face I was pretty... intrigued. How weird. Such a strange way to tell a story. What's their purpose? What do they do? Initially, I was quite confused. They were minimalistic, and, more often than not, they seemed to have no real correlation to anything that was going on. How ignorant I was. How foolish of me. There were two aspects I was particularly fond of:
These exercises, as a whole, required input from the player, and I believe that, for the most part, all of them tried to teach something. To showcase various paths for radiance. And let it be known, radiance, despite the name and main theme behind Tesla, does not always imply good and just. I'll come back to this later.
The second part I really liked is how effective they turned out to be with me. I cried various times over the course of the VN, probably four or thereabout. The smashing majority were during these exercises. The music and the minimalistic images joined together, the narration and context derived from the main story itself, they come together and fill in all the holes forming a wonderful and emotional tale. The main story shows you the present, which you deem mostly incomprehensible a great deal the time, or fail to understand the context. Afterward, or sometimes in the very middle of what appears to be the climax, these calm, relaxing exercises suddenly appear and fill in all the holes. You learn the motivations. You relate the exercise characters to the real characters, you find out their past through this, and it is altogether more effective than flat out stating it all.
These brought their own problems. After learning of the nature of these exercises, you start to spot patterns and can immediately deduce who the story will focus on within the first few minutes: See Émile's chapter with Louis-Charles. On the other hand, this can still be used effectively to induce false conclusions. See Berta's chapter - the exercises lead us to believe she is the woman in question (and in turn, may render the "she's actually female" reveal, rather stale) when she is actually her daughter. Not much of a twist, but it does show the writer was probably well aware of the flaw, with how they toy with is like this.
Moving on from the reading exercises, I'll continue with the setting.
I found it rather interesting if a bit depressing with a tinge of hopefulness. A Steampunk setting doesn't really speak to me. I have no strong opinions either way. Since this is a Steampunk setting and I'm not interested either way, that's out in regards as to why I found it interesting. This leaves an alternate history setting, which I liked, and copious amounts of references to a living, breathing world out there all throughout the story. Situations like Holmes existing, various historical personages with their own roles in history and my very own dictionary with a good deal of backstory all within. Add to all this how the characters and omniscient narrator refer to previous events constantly, things we don't know about, things we might have known about, were we an actual character in the story, and this works wonders for immersion.
Of course, hating all things "bad" and "evil" like I do, I was very much saddened at the polluted and irreversible society they lived in. Also not a fan of how most of the "new" technology were things that have only recently been invented or things we can't even mimic with today's technology: See all the giant robots, androids and machines that make you learn on your own (I am guessing they were actually effective beyond being used for the chairman's schemes, here).
As for the plot, I can say I  actually didn't see it going anywhere far, which is why the last three or so chapters surprised me. For the first few chapters, I thought every chapter we'd get new characters and solve a mystery and help people. Of course, this sort of come and go episodic format doesn't do much for plot, unless they are all connected, and they certainly didn't seem all that connected, early on. I would actually have been fine if it kept up until the end. I liked the format and the various little stories. To me that was fine. But in those last three chapters they picked up the slack, kicked up the drama a notch, let the big bad go free, and made one of those "all those you've helped in the past band together and (in soviet russia) help you" sort of stories. Being a sucker for that sort of thing, I was rather satisfied. Of course, given how the VN had thus far focused the climaxes on the battles, It was rather anti-climatic when Tesla insta-kills the big bad after reuniting with Neon. Turns out the zenith of the chapter had been her trip to Tesla, not the fight itself.
To go into further details, I feel I should focus on the characters and their respective chapters.
Starting with Tesla. Because the narrator does not lie (even though he is omniscient: Umineko could stand to learn a few things about not lying to the reader in a mystery), we know right from the start that most of his claims are true, his true nature is one who does not lie, one who pursues justice, one who fights evil. We can also plainly see he is arrogant, brutally honest, curt and that he does not mince words. All of these are pluses to me, provided the arrogance has justification - which it does - in both skill and age. Speaking of age, given how he cannot lie, why is it that he was able to declare he was younger than he actually was? Whilst this made for a small comedic gag about not wanting to seem too old, I don't deem it as worth breaking character or principles for.
Tesla makes, therefore, for one of my favourite male characters to speak of, in ideals and personality both.
If I had to find a negative, him deciding he would need to atone for his existence with Neon, that he caused her love life such unnecessary strife because of his predetermined decision... would be my main flaw. Had he simply said, "My existence caused their deaths; by the time I found out, it was already to late.", had he simply explained the circumstances... the whole final chapter could have been avoided, really. Optimal scenario doesn't really make for much of a story, I suppose.
Surprisingly enough, Neon's friends did not get much in the way of development.
We know a bit about Annabeth's father and her methods as well of personality. Of Neon's friends, she was the one who appeared the most. Not that that helped me understand what her relation with JJ actually was, in the end.
We never did get to find out Izumi's secret with the "headband" and tail, though foreshadowing made it obvious enough.
Poor Albert was hardly present. At least JJ and Louis-Charles had chapters where they could be present more often, but no such mercy for Albert. Being kicked out of the beach chapter deeply hurt his overall presence in the VN.
These general characters mentioned, I believe I should get some order around here and backtrack all the way to the first chapter... To the very start of the Visual Novel.
It certainly knew how to make an impression. We start playing as this seemingly nice girl who goes to school and appears to be awfully shy... only to find out her real circumstances aren't anything so nice. We see her deluding herself, all in an attempt to stay at this academy for reasons yet unknown. All we know is that she had to, somehow. We slowly, or maybe rather quickly, see her breaking down, no matter what she herself claimed. We see the nature of the people she is dealing with. When, after a long, long, while, we see that she lost her highly unstable job, and that her boss was quite indeed on the verge of coming on top of her...
It ends.
I'm not sure if that's where the chapter ends, but I do know that the story perspective stops there, and we don't find out exactly what took place until... the bloody final chapter. I'll give you this: There's no reason we couldn't have found out about what happened earlier... but I guess it's fine.
From here we see Neon in a rather shameless position for a while and are introduced to our main character, where he does a wonderful job showcasing the traits I've referred to above. Also, Jelly Beans - we'll come back to those. Speaking of things we'll come back to, try not to forget about the various "Q:"s we were put through at the start.
Chapter 2 - or are we still in chapter 1? - does some things I very much enjoyed. After that dark and demoralising first impression, we are introduced to the hero who fixes everything, and he did fix everything, and this touched some of my favourite situations in media: A slave being given freedom or being treated like a human. It is actually rather strange how she found the audacity to complain at her new "Master" about all sorts of things...
That aside, this chapter (or is it the next one?) includes the very first battle in the VN, with Walther. I wasn't really a fan of it, at all. Sure, I like to see overpowered characters using highly exaggerated powers with silly names as much as the next guy, but this is assuming the next guy doesn't like them much. On the other hand, I came to like Walther himself. The character we see here, this terrible first impression he gives us as... plainly evil, really... it disappears. Or at least, over the course of the visual novel, in the incredibly brief appearances he made over the course of the rest of the visual novel, my animosity toward him just simply up and vanished, getting replaced with love, of all things! By the time I got to the end I loved the guy, and it really is mysterious how it all came to be. Perhaps there's something wrong with my head, besides the obvious?
It was in some random scene after this point that I temporarily halted the VN. When I got back to it, I found myself in Odile's chapter. This is the point where I thought I'd figured out the VN's structure with the various exercises for the reader and "mystery of the week" format. For the chapter itself, I don't have much in the way of impressions, beyond this being the first point in time Neon struck me as remotely interesting. More specifically, in the manner which she manages to read the emotions of a person somewhat accurately. Perhaps I like this trait because I'm a dimwit at it myself?
Next up was probably Anne's, the iron lady's, chapter. Each chapter shows us a different form of radiance, some more twisted than others, and Anne's? Anne's radiance seemed to be in the right place all the way through. She simply needed to be more aware she cannot be an iron lady toward everything, all the time, no matter how much she wishes it. This chapter focused on showing us the various other sides of the Marshal and revealing a bit of JJ's backstory. All in all, I liked it. She seemed to have something going on with JJ, but we never saw anything too informative, so I suppose it'll forever remain a mystery. Not even our "omniscient" narrator seemed to be fully aware of it.
Berta's chapter was set up to be the silliest thing yet. The story decided to break the rules of its own setting - or perhaps better put, take advantage of the Academia's constant bending of them - and include a beach episode. It can be said it most certainly came out of the left field. It was nevertheless appreciated: The reader mostly follows Tesla's point of view, and for good reason. The many lines he spouts during these scenes made some quite gold material. The whole love drama with Jo was entirely dispensable... but let's focus on what I really loved about this chapter: The reading exercises.
The story they told caused many a tear to jump out from my eyes. I can only assume this VN is so overpowered it gushed dust particles in my general direction during these scenes. Either that, or these scenes touched on the right subjects for me, those being family, bonds, and love. I may or may not a have bawled a bit. I didn't quite understand all that much about her whole plot for revenge... I'm just glad she came to her senses in the end. I felt satisfied after finishing this chapter. From here on I was actually rather captivated for every scene about the council, as more and more of the members came to change their views and thoughts.
Next up was Émile's chapter, which is also where I first understood how there were many sorts of radiance. Her thoughts and beliefs on how a ruler should behave, they all... seemed correct to me. And yet, simultaneously... no human being should have to be put through that. No friends, no emotions, no impartiality... that's what Tesla was trying to point out about her radiance. This is all the more amazing when you consider he's doing precisely the same thing, Tesla, by taking all burden up himself, so that others may live unhindered. Really makes you think about the many kinds of "radiance" out there. What is "just", what is "good", what is "tastiest? Chocolate or Jelly Beans?" This made the entire chapter interesting to me, this battle of ideals. I ended up really liking the resolution, with her "friend" trying to reach out to her, and said friend being helped by her own friends to do it. This is the point in the VN where I liked Neon the most, a girl who is perceptive with others' emotions, and believes in her friends through it all. Louis-Charles also got most of his development from Émile's chapter, not that I ever cared about him, much.
Chapter 9, or whatever that really short chapter with the gate to hell was, is what I considered filler with a capital F, at First. Upon thinking about it further, even though it had no connection with everything else that was going on in the background, it showed some really good sides of Neon. Her ability to trust Tesla with all her heart, enough to put herself in harm's way just to help a random student, I loved that. Her apparent "No big deal, but would you kindly get rid of the monster now? It's trying to molest me, here." attitude also made for a rather amusing scene.
Jo's chapter wasn't too interesting by my standards. I was unable to understand the conflict, and Neon's jealously irked me so. Still, I am a fan of mentally broken characters, especially when they come to heal, so I manage to salvage some enjoyment out of this chapter.
From here, we go on to the big final chapters, and this is where everything culminated. It is almost strange how they managed to address so many plot points then and there. Why the Chateu d'if (or whatever the name is) was one of the first things present on the island, why the students were so easily manipulated, Tesla's backstory, and many other things. If I were to speak of what I liked? Anything after Neon regained here memories. What I disliked? Anything involving Neon before that point. How all the governing council members were related, plus Neon and the society member, is probably the most difficult thing to believe. In my eyes, that was entirely unnecessary. It would have been fine if only Neon was related, but everyone? A wee bit too much, I thought.
A few more random impressions on the finale: Wilhelm's (...or was it Reich?) fall from glory happened far too fast, and we didn't get to see him until the end, where he still hadn't learnt his lesson. The big bad was about as absurd as expected. Florence never had a real chance to show off her powers, what with getting killed thousands of times over by the second. Tesla and Smilja's backstory really was the best here, it let me cry a bit more. Remember the Jelly Beans? Oh, so that's why. Remember the questions the game posed at the start? What do you think, now that you had time to think it over?
The very best part was, as I've said over and over, Neon recovering her memories... for no apparent reason, actually; and going on her trip to save Tesla. Meeting all the people you've seen over the course of this VN, if only for the briefest of moments, to the sound of epic music, was epic in and of itself.
...I believe that is all I wanted to say. My impressions of this VN were mostly positive, and the finale succeeded in captivating and satisfying me. There is nothing else I could ask of a story. Since I don't want to offend certain people, certain dice, I won't put a numerical value that can be easily spotted from far away, and instead I'll say that it's a nine out of ten, and hide away in an unimportant corner most people won't ever bother reading. The best place to hide a tree is a forest, after all.
 
This was the original conclusion to my post, for those interested:
This VN is a bad VN. I wanted it to end a certain way and it didn't. I wanted it to have routes and it didn't. I didn't like some of the purposeful choices in narration. Some sprites and CG's were disproportionate and the UI and menus did not feel smooth as butter. 4/10 VN.
 
Final note:
While writing this I had a desk lamp next to me, pointed at some work I was supposed to have been doing, and every time I got up I seemed to get hit by said lamp. So I decided to make a counter for it.
Hit my head on lamp count: 6
 
Post Scriptum Final Notum:

To be honest, it is really hard to comment on this series of sequels/fandiscs... 
S
For better or worse, S really is a sequel, starting from just before the events in the true route of the original.  It adds a massive number of characters (seriously, the number added is ridiculous), extended after-stories for the original game, a what-if scenario for Yuki, and five new heroine paths...  unfortunately, those heroine paths are hit and miss. 
I'm going to say it outright... Tsubame's path was boring.  Oh, there were some good fights, but I honestly never got to like her as a character, so there was no sense of tension in any of what happened for me.  I really could have done without this path existing at all.
Monshiro's path, on the other hand... is first-class (as long as you are a lolicon or don't watch the h-scenes - which I didn't).  Combined with the complete after-story in A, it is one of my favorite paths.  Part of that is because Yamato grows more in this path and its related Majikoi A paths than he does on any of the others, and the other part is because it is just all-around the best constructed of the heroine paths.
Tatsuko's 'path' is basically just an after-story for the true path of the original where you choose the Itagaki sisters.  There isn't much there but h-scenes and ichaicha, so it is hard to comment on it.
Kokoro's path is... less than memorable.  Honestly, it felt like they didn't put much effort into it at all. 
Margrit's path is pretty good, if you like the side of himself that Yamato showed in Chris's path.  If you hated it, you'll hate this path.
A
First, I'll say that all but one of my favorite paths from 1-4 are Kuki-related (split-offs from Monshiro's path).  Asumi, Stacey, and Ri all get paths in this one, and I liked all of them, though Asumi's was the best of the three.  I also liked the Monshiro after story, Rin's story, and Homura's story.  Each one is about equivalent in length and content to a full heroine route in the original Majikoi, so there is no reason to complain about the amount or depth of content.  Seiso's and Benkei's paths were good, but not as interesting as the paths above.  Other than that... there isn't much to say.  I didn't really like Yukie's sister's path (mostly because I hate the 'pretend lovers' trope like the plague). 
One thing I noticed is that, throughout Majikoi A, they were setting up for a potential fourth Majikoi game... and I honestly don't know how I feel about them wanting to continue to milk this series and cast of characters.

How to Archery
2-Are donuts really Haram?
An interesting tweet.
3-Be careful with fireworks
4-What happens when a cat jumps into the refrigerator?
5-Happy new years (?)
Or at least, happier than this poor guy
Hope ya'll had a fun time last year. And I hope I do better this new year ... o/

Alright, here's number two! Note that these aren't put in any particular order. Enjoy
1-Understanding Nyanyans
I made a conscious effort to stay from cats last time, but screw it:They are everywhere for a reason. If you're looking to understand cat behavior and language more, or just want cute kittie pics, this should satisfy you:
 2-TFW you start out strong, but then things go downhill...
... Literally
3- Reasons why you shouldn't post your pictures on the internet.
Sure, this particular position is kinda asking for it... But anyone with enough photoshop skillz can turn even the most innocent picture of you into a sex tape. Beware
4-Why Women Can't Drive in Saudi Arabia
title
 5-When you're trying to take down the boss your team be like
I guess you can say this about any team in a co-op game.
And that is that. I didn't type the paragraphs I thought I would, but "The best of speeches are the clear and short" (let's see if you can find the source of that. Note that it's translated from Arabic :P) . Lemme know whachya think buddeh, I'll be sure to... Consider your words  

A few days after Christmas and the site has been infested with either selfies and star wars spoilers, or posts complaining about selfies and star wars spoilers, so it's refreshing to see something new for a change.
1-Crazy Post of the day
This one is a bit NSFW, so I'll just post the link. I can't really give you a description as I'm not sure what to say, but if you're bored out of your mind, this might slightly amuse you http://imgur.com/gallery/bUpNgCe
2-Animals
Oddly enough, this doesn't concern cats. I know, a post on the internet about animals that doesn't have cats?! I couldn't believe my eyes either! But hey, it's heartwarming sometimes to see animals do their unexpected things, so here ya go
3-What Happens When You Lose to a Mud Monster in Monster Girl Quest
My title is probably more appropriate than the original
4-Meme of za day
Took quite a while finding this one. We all know memes on the internet are serious business. I chose this one because well... It's kinda funny no?
5-What iz Racism?
A bit more serious, and it's also a repost, but the message here is as true as it is important. 
And that's that for today. Not much words and critique, but that's mainly because it's the end of the day and I can't really give each picture it's fair share of criticism and consideration. You can look forward to more of that in the future. Hope you had fun for now, any suggestions/complaints/praises are appreciated

CONFESSION: I use you guys in lieu of an actual social life. I really do.
The internet has made certain things easier. When you find people you share things in common with and can socialize in some way, such as message boards about Japanese porno games stories, you tend to use it as a surrogate friendship. Heck, I actually got married because of CrossGen's boards way back in the day.
So, I love you guys.

You'd expect them to be of a size adequate to fulfill the role of spread on a particular food, but I can't think of any widely consumed product that would require this little butter. This is inconvenient especially because I don't know how many butter packets to take when I need to use them in the future, which is exactly their intended purpose. How am I supposed to know how much butter something warrants when the amount of butter in the packet isn't set to any standard? If it were set to cover a regular-sized slice of bread, then I'd say "I'll just take two" when I intend to apply the butter to a bagel. But no, I cannot fathom any metric justification by which the mass of butter abides. The size of these packets serves no righteous ends. By that I mean that they may be convenient for those who have power over their specifications, because some companies profit liberally by excessive packaging and other iniquitous forms of mass production. But viewing the situation from a zero-sum perspective, this obviously isn't beneficial to the general population. That extra packaging probably costs small companies an additional marginal sum, which adds up to a lot across the board. And it certainly doesn't help myself and other consumers who want larger package sizes.

I know what you're thinking - 'Rooke has news? He must be taking a leave from the site.' Well... HA! Not a chance, bub. No no no no no. I must annoy Tay, and I cannot do that while off in the never never.
I merely thought I might highlight the day's news. Keeping up with the world is important if you want to remain learned and engaged. PS: Please don't hurt me  
Technology:
'Driverless cars can now ‘see’ around corners,' is the first headline I see, an enviable trait lacking in inferior, organic organisms. This new ability is truly wondrous and will be of great benefit to everybody’s safety… until the sensor breaks. Not like you’ll notice, because the light on the dashboard that glows green when there’s a problem with the sensors will also be broken. But it's not like you’ll care, because the cars ability to tell its left from its right will also have taken a vacation, causing your lucky self to be driven straight off a mountain pass to your briefly thrilling but ultimately painful doom. Nobody at the manufacturer will know what caused this weird phenomena, and your death will be written off as a ‘software glitch, ain’t that just weird ahahaha.’
No thank you, I’ll walk.
More technology:
‘Volvo cars get advanced kangaroo avoidance tech in Australia’ – it’s called drivers with a working set of eyes, hands, and feet.
Politics:
‘Malcolm Turnbull’s (Australia’s current Prime Minister) visit to Indonesia could reset our relationship with our sometimes-beloved cousins to the North.’ What blessed voodoo is this? The ability to reset relationships at will? How can I get my roguish, rugged hands on whatever it is he's obtained?
Just last week he was busy flaunting his newfound powers when he ‘reset the Government’s relationship with science.’ It's just freakish. And convenient. And enviable. Mostly enviable. Because I’m sure most people have an ex-partner they’d wish to reset their relationship with... after they cocked up badly like so:
 
Social Issues:
'An all-female, Russian astronaut crew was asked (by journalists) how they’d cope without makeup and men.' One of the astronauts (or cosmonauts) replied 'we are doing work, when you’re doing work you don’t think about men and women’. At this point every man listening scoffed and choked. Why? Well, take a look at the dude opposite you, the one enjoying a burger and some fries. Is he thinking about how delicious all that fried oil is, and how he's going to die young and full of regret? Of course not, he's thinking about sex. The guy who’s on his cell, in the cinema, arguing with the tax office while having shoes thrown at him, well he’s thinking about sex too. A man could be in the middle of the Arctic, during the worst blizzard of the century, being threatened by a man wielding a machete and with 3 Timberwolves snarling at his feet and he would still be thinking about sex. This idea of thinking about 'work' when doing 'work' is alien, and foreign, and clearly too radical to take off.
Sometimes I weep for real journalism 
Health:
A recent study produced this headline: 'Why do 55% of women report a lack of interest in sex?' Because of their partner’s appearance. Too easy. Next.  
World news:
‘US releases plan for solar flares and space weather disaster’ - Aims to launch the first of many strongly worded letters into space early next year. That will show them the US is not to be trifled with.
Entertainment:
'Fifty Shades Darker’ release date delayed?' Are you heartbroken? I know I am…
Feel Good:
And we end on a happy note. ‘A 97 year old woman who was forced to leave high school 8 decades ago when her mother fell ill, broke down in tears this week as she was presented with an honorary diploma from her alma mater.’ A wonderful moment for someone who sacrificed selflessly for her whole life. 
Now, don't we all feel so much more informed?

This blog is all about owning my mistakes and putting them on public display, so let’s do this. And yeah, I knew this one was going to come back and bite me in the ass. This was my albatross. This was my giant ass-biting albatross.
The great “tricky” debacle of 2015
So there’s this word that shows up in the English translation of Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort. If you’ve read it, you might have noticed it once or twice.
“Tricky.”
Umi, the main heroine, falls back on this word a lot to describe the protagonist. She uses it when he’s being nice. And when he’s being a jerk. And when he’s chewing food. And any other opportunity she can think of. Basically, I think she gets paid 100 yen every time she manages to work that word into a sentence. And let me tell you: girl is pulling down bank.
Of course, this is a translation, so she’s not actually saying “tricky.” She’s saying something similar in Japanese. And therein lies a tale of woe and sorrow.
The backstory
But let’s rewind a bit first.
When I came aboard the KoiRizo team, it was to edit a single route: Nagisa’s. Makes sense — I was a first-time VN editor, and Nagisa’s route was the shortest in the game. Moreover, it was an unlockable, which meant that comparatively few people would end up reading it. Other editors were already hacking away at most of the remaining routes anyway, so that was all fine by me.
As I worked my way through Nagisa’s scripts, I saw the word “tricky” pop up once or twice in Umi’s dialogue as a personal insult and it just seemed ... odd to me. Tough math problems are tricky. Opening a stubborn jar of peanut butter is tricky. People? Less so. I’m an editor, though, not a translator, so I did what I was supposed to do: flagged it for TLC review, left a comment with my concerns, edited the line as best I could, then moved along. The translator on the project had made it clear he wouldn’t be reviewing any edits until all the routes were finished being edited, so that’s about all I could do at the time.
When I finished cleaning up Nagisa’s route, I was asked if I wouldn’t mind tackling Shiori’s scripts as well, which no other editor had gotten around to yet. “Sure,” I said, and set about tidying that up as well. The word “tricky” popped up a couple more times, so I did the same thing: flagged it, reiterated my concerns, then kept on editing.
I finished Shiori, and was asked if I’d pick up the common route and Umi’s route; the editing on both of these had apparently stalled. Okay, what had started out as a quickie project for me was slowly turning into something much more time-consuming. I could see that. But I was still having fun, so I agreed. I started with the common route, where Umi has more screen time, which meant I started seeing the word “tricky” a little more often.
And I started to worry.
I flagged it, left a comment along the lines of “See my earlier notes on tricky,” and kept editing. I was determined not to get hung up on one silly word. It was becoming clear that this was sort of a catchphrase word for Umi, and I didn’t want to change the translation in my scripts if all the other editors’ scripts were keeping it as is. It’d be like if a screenwriter on The Simpsons decided that “D’oh!” sounded dumb, so Homer should say “Ooops!” instead — but only on the episodes he/she worked on.
Anyway, I finished the common route and moved onto Umi’s. And lo, I gazed into a bottomless abyss of trickiness.

You sly dumbass, you.
Now let’s talk about the actual word. In Japanese, it’s “ずるい” — “zurui.” And, true to its definition, zurui’s a tricky word to pin down.
It’s often translated as “unfair.” (Or so I’ve been told. Again, I’m an editor, not a translator. I took a Japanese class or two a few years back, so I have a basic familiarity with the rudiments of grammar and vocabulary. I’m good for: “Hello, I only speak a little Japanese. Sorry! What time is it? Where is the train? I am a very cute peach.” And that’s about it.) But there’s a little more nuance to it than that. Getting cancer is unfair. Having your advisor take credit for your thesis is unfair. “Zurui” implies a level of deviousness, impishness, slyness, craftiness, and yes, even trickiness. Someone who’s being “zurui” knows they’re getting away with something — and they’re okay with that.
Moreover, it has a secondary meaning of being miserly, which is something that definitely applies to Soutarou, the protagonist of KoiRizo. I have to imagine that wordplay was not lost on the writers ... or the characters.
There’s no one good English word to capture all those layers of meaning. When Umi uses this word to describe the protagonist in KoiRizo, it’s clear from context that her emotional shading varies from line to line. Sometimes she’s straight-up pissed at him and is telling him off: “You jackass.” Other times, she’s more of a late-game tsundere and says it playfully, even affectionately: “You sly dog you.” But she uses the same Japanese word every single time. Sometimes she’ll even say it six or seven times in a row without taking a breath.
“Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. Zurui. ZURUI!”
It was her catchphrase. And in pretty much every instance, it had been translated as “tricky.”
If the word only appeared once or twice in KoiRizo, I could have swapped in the contextually appropriate English replacements and been done with it. (I actually did this in a handful of places throughout the VN, usually when it was clear she was at one extreme of the word or the other.) But given how often it showed up, I felt somehow obligated to honor authorial intent. This was Umi’s pet phrase for this guy she’d fallen in love with. At one point, I think she even uses it as all the parts of speech in a single sentence. If I started changing “zurui” to different words every time, she’d lose a fairly important character quirk.
After looking at all the options, the translator’s choice of “tricky” started seeming like it wasn’t a half-bad compromise after all. It got across that Umi thought the protag was dealing from the bottom of the emotional deck, but it also had a playful, teasing quality. It was never the best word in any particular instance, but it seemed like it might be flexible enough to be just sorta kinda okay in all instances.
That argument makes sense, right? I thought so at the time, anyway. And so I left “tricky” as it was.
Boy, was I wrong.

Mea culpa
I overthought it, plain and simple. I forgot my personal rule of writing and editing: Make the journey as frictionless for the readers as possible. Don’t let them get snagged on odd phrasings or slightly off words. Keep them immersed in the story.
I’d forgotten how jarring that “tricky” word seemed those first few times I saw it in translation. As the months passed, some sort of editing Stockholm Syndrome set in and I actually started thinking it might be an acceptable option.
In short, I messed up.
When I read Umineko for the first time, Battler’s use (and abuse) of the word “useless” seemed so ill-fitting to me in English prose that I almost gave up reading the VN right then and there. But now, I sort of understand how the Witch Hunt team might have, over time, come to see this ungainly adjective as the best compromise for their main character’s catchphrase. It doesn’t make me like it much more, but I can see how they ended up there. (But don’t get me started on “turn the chessboard over” vs. “turn the chessboard around.” The latter works; the former leaves you with a bunch of chess pieces on the ground.)
So here's the deal: It doesn’t matter that I had to make literally hundreds of judgment calls like this over the course of editing KoiRizo — what to do with Yuuhi’s numerous nicknames for the protagonist, as just one example — and 99% of them turned out okay (I hope).
What matters is there’s a big lump of tricky sitting in the middle of the visual novel. And it doesn't work.
I signed off on it. And I take full responsibility for that.
So what to do? Not much, to be honest. It’s one of those things I’d love to revisit if given the chance, but a 2.0 KoiRizo patch seems unlikely at this time. MDZ keeps his own counsel, but he seems to have moved onto other pursuits.
And that, as they say, is that.
Postscript
As I mentioned, the original intent of this blog was to put a spotlight on my many missteps as a first-time VN editor. That hasn’t changed. I might also try to throw in some helpful life advice from time to time, but I’m mainly happy to let my blunders serve as good object lessons for other aspiring editors.
That means you should feel free to discuss any boneheaded decisions you think I might have made. Odds are I’ll own up to them. I've got a very thick skin, after all. I just ask two things:
1. This blog is about editing. If you have issues with someone’s translation choices, I kindly ask that you take it elsewhere. I hear Fuwa has really nice forums for that sort of thing, y'know? But if you have issues with how I edited someone's translation, then bring it on.
2. Please don’t be a giant pixelated dick about it. No one likes a pixel pick.

How do you eat an entire whale? One bite at a time. Preferably with Cholula.
How do you edit/translate/whatever a visual novel? One line at a time. Preferably with bourbon.
Whether you’re a fan of the final product or not, one of the things that impresses me most about MDZ’s fan translation of Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort is that it got released, period. As in, if you were so inclined, you could download the installer right now, patch the original Japanese game, and go play the thing on your new-fangled Windows Pee-Cee. No demos, no one-route partial patches. The whole damned VN in English, finished on schedule and out there in the world.
The project didn’t stall. It didn’t wind up in no-updates-in-six-months-but-we-think-they’re-still-working-on-it hell. It didn’t climb into that white panel van with Little Busters EX, never to be heard from again. The nice man was lying to you, Little Busters EX — there were no cute little puppies in the back. What were you thinking?!
The KoiRizo team did nothing particularly special to make this happen. We just ate the whale one bite at a time.
The rhythm method
By his own account, MDZ worked very methodically on the project, spending an average of 30 minutes every day translating scripts into English. Not when he felt like it. Not when inspiration struck. Not when enough people harassed him with all-caps emails asking why the HELL hadn’t there been any progress updates on the KoiRizo tracker lately. He made it an expected part of his routine, like brushing his teeth or eating dinner. He scheduled regular translation sessions between classes or before heading out in the morning.
He did a little bit. Every. Single. Day.
There’s a word for that: consistency. That’s what gets things done in the real world, not 48-hour marathons every random.randint(1,6) weekends fueled by Red Bull, Hot Pockets, and intense self-loathing. Consistency keeps you from getting burned out. Consistency lets you make reasonable schedules and estimates, then stick to them. Consistency is like goddamned black magic.
Over the course of the project, MDZ had consistency in spades. If he can maintain that approach to life, I have a feeling he’ll be successful at whatever he puts his mind to after college.
When I came on board as an editor, I kept a somewhat similar schedule. I resolved to set aside my commuting time each workday for editing. And so for 40 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the evening, Monday through Friday, I’d park my butt in a train seat, break out my laptop, and just edit.
Weekdays were reserved for my family. If you’re married with kids, you know there is no such thing as free time on weekends. If you’re not married and don’t have kids, please tell me what the outside world is like. I hear they came out with a PlayStation 2? That’s gotta be pretty awesome.
Anyway, that’s what I ended up doing. Edit every single workday. For six months. Until it was done.
(Six months? That long to edit a medium-length visual novel? Yeah, that long. KoiRizo weighs in at 36,000+ lines. Over six months, that works out to about 1,400 lines a week, or 210 lines per hour. That’s an edited line every 17 seconds or so, with most of the lines needing substantial polishing/rewriting. I have no idea what pace other VN editors work at, but I felt like this was one I could maintain over the long haul. Call it the distance runner’s lope.)

Special topics in calamity physics
So why all this rambling about whales and consistency? Because I just got back from vacation a few days ago and I’ve been surprised at how long it’s taken me to get my head back into the various projects I’ve been working on (or even writing this blog). And then I got to wondering how often something small like that snowballs into a stalled or even failed project. A missed day turns into a skipped week turns into a skipped month turns into a dead translation.
Which then got me thinking about the coefficient of friction.
It’s basic physics, which I excelled at (failing repeatedly). In layman’s terms, it’s a ratio (μ) that gives you a sense how much force two surfaces exert on each other and, therefore, how much force you need to exert to get something moving from a dead stop. Wooden block on ice? Low coefficient of friction. Wooden block on shag carpet? High coefficient of friction ... and a senseless crime against tasteful décor. Once you overcome that initial friction, it takes comparatively little force to keep an object in motion.
I can easily imagine there’s a coefficient of friction between us and our work, some quantifiable level of resistance that needs be overcome before we get our asses in gear and be productive. And unlike the one in Physics 101, which is constant for any two materials, this one is different every single day. It depends on a bunch of different factors: how interested we are in our projects, how appreciated we feel, what other projects we’ve got going on at the same time, how much sleep we’ve gotten, what else is going on in our lives, whether or not the Mets are currently in the World Series, etc.
Let’s call it the coefficient of slackitude.
Once we get started on a project and make it part of our everyday routine, we can largely ignore this number. We’ve overcome the initial slackitude and, with moderate effort, can keep things rolling along fairly smoothly. But each time we let things coast to a stop, even for a few days, we’ve got to overcome the slackitude all over again. And since that value is variable, it might be much harder the second time around. In fact, it probably will be.
Eventually, we’ll fail to do so. And our project will die.
The takeaway
So other than the fact that I had no business being anywhere near a physics classroom, what can we take away from my incoherent ramblings? A couple things:
The easiest way to make sure your project gets finished is to stick to a regular schedule. Eat the whale a little at a time — every day if you can. Minimize the gaps. Avoid having to face off against that nasty coefficient of slackitude more than once. The easiest way to make sure your project gets started at all is to pick a time when that coefficient of slackitude is low — when you’re excited by the prospect, when you’re well-rested, when you have relatively few competing interests. When you can focus. Use that time to build your momentum, so when your interest wanes or real life intrudes — it always does and it always will — the project is so embedded in your routine that you can just ride it out. We need more finished translations in the world. So pull up a chair and eat your whale. Do it for your team. Do it for yourself. Do it for poor Little Busters EX, drugged and ball-gagged in a basement somewhere, forever wondering when it’ll finally get to see the puppies.