mitchhamilton

It’s here.
I’ve always felt that the WordPress site felt a little lacking, so now Euphemic Translation has moved to a new domain with a brand-spanking new, shiny design. I spent many hours getting everything nicely together without anything suddenly exploding, and I’d say I’ve done a good enough job with it. More or less everything’s been imported and greatly updated, including the theme. Tell me what you think of it.
As you probably could already guess, the old site is going to be abandoned, to put it bluntly. If this site goes under, I’ll of course revert back to the old site, but I don’t see that happening.
Anyways, onwards to the actual update.
We almost got 50% on editing with 48 percent, and whole 10% more on QC. Things are going smoothly, and they don’t seem to be slowing down, but nothing special has happened this week aside from the new website.
Progress:

See ya next week, on this new address.
http://euphemictl.vntls.com/2016/08/26/update-32-new-domain-new-website/

Like I said in my previous blog post, I have been wanting to keep my blog more active for a while, and this time I'll be talking about yatagarasu's yurige, Seisai no Resonance.
Before we get into it, I have to admit, I skipped a few routes in this one in order to get the true ending. (Nagi's true end.) It's not that the other girls in the game are bad, but more that Nagi was such an interesting character, her normal ending was not enough to satisfy me, so I HAD to skip to the true ending. (For a very annoying reason, you HAVE to complete at least another route, (possibly all of them?) after Nagi's before you can get Nagi's true ending, as Nagi's true end serves as the whole game's true route.) I ended up grabbing a 100% save file, so I could jump into her true route. Because of that, this post will primarily be talking about the common route, Nagi's route and the true ending.
 
To quickly sum up the setting and start of the story. Kanae, our main character, travels to Otofuse Island to look for her mother, who vanished seven years ago. Otofuse is a small island closed off from the main land, where a strange ritual takes place every year. The reason for this ritual is, long ago, a big fireball fell down on the island, and a pair of shrine maidens were the ones who calmed down and sealed away the flames. Ever since that that, a yearly ritual is held, where two shrine maidens are picked to preform a similar sealing ritual like back then. The shrine maidens on the island now wield strange "gems" that grants them special powers. (More on this later.)
Kanae takes a ferry to the island, but before she reaches Otofuse, a strange girl from a "shady" organization running the island, the shourai-kai, attacks her and she falls into the sea. Washed up ashore, Kanae is rescued by the beautiful and mysterious Mirai, who tells Kanae she has to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother again. After a bit of a struggle, Kanae enrolls at Sakihana all-girls school, and aims to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother.
 
Gameplay
This game has a rather interesting battle system, which is used for boss battles, training matches and so on in the game. (So, often when Kanae gets in a fight, you end up battling.) I personally found the gameplay very fun, but totally out of place. Because of how rarely you actually end up fighting, and how little the result of the battle matters, it almost just served as an obstacle between the story segments, which I did not enjoy. Like I said at first, the gameplay itself was actually pretty fun and well made, but it just... felt totally uncesessary. (At the end, I honestly just found myself annoyed at the fact that these battles were interrupting the story.)
The combat is quite similar to fighting games like the Naruto PS3 games etc. You can move in a 360 angle, use different powers to fight your opponent, drain your "spirit(?)" as you preform special attacks and so on.
Overall, although the gameplay started off as fun and was well made, I really didn't feel like it had a place in the game at all.

Story
As Kanae tries to become a powerful shrine maiden, so that she can be selected for the yearly ritual and see her mother, you learn more and more about what is actually going on in Otofuse.
Why is the shourai-kai trying to kill Kanae? Why must Kanae become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother, and what happened to her mother seven years ago? What are the strange beings living in the forest outside the school grounds?
I found the story very good, which was really cool for a yuri title, which often focuses primarily on the romance, not the story segments.
Towards the end, I was glued to the screen, wondering what would happen next, and the way the game was paced was quite nice in my opinion. Some people have complained about the writing of the story, but I found it absolutely fine. It was entertaining from start to finish. Now, moving on from the common route, I will only be able to talk about the Nagi route and the true ending, but honestly, you should play this game just for that. (Short version, it was great.)
 
Nagi and Kanae

This is without a doubt one of my favorite yuri romances, ever. Kanae is goofy and funny, sociable and a little bit overly friendly with most people she meets. Nagi on the other hand, is a retracted, cold and cunning girl. (She is very intelligent when it comes to most things, but she isn't very good at social situations, unlike Kanae, and she is a bit of a tsundere under her closed off shell. Strange, but great mix.) At first, she uses Kanae for her own benefit, which is searching for an answer to a question she has had for a while. (Basically, what is actually going on? Nagi doesn't believe that the ritual and the shourai-kai is what it seems to be, and wants to dig deeper in order to find the truth.) Kanae wants to find her mother, and the two start working together. From there on out, one of the greatest yuri romances I have read unfolds. (And plot too, but pffft, who cares about that. )
The two of them are literal opposites, Kanae with her warmth and her flames, and Nagi with her cold attitude and her ice. (Going back to the powers I mentioned earlier, the true image of their soul is reflected in the shrine maiden's powers, which is summoned from a special stone they all have. (Kanae recieved hers as a gift from her mother years ago.)
So, for the closed off Nagi, we have ice.

And for the warm and loving Kanae, it's fire.

 
As Kanae learns more about Nagi, she decides that she wants to be the one to "melt Nagi's ice," which is honestly one of my favorite quotes ever, and the two of them just fit so perfectly together in the game, as they are literal opposites. The pacing in Nagi's route is absolutely perfect, and the romance is slowly but surely introduced, so not rushed at all. There is also a fairly small amount of H-scenes, 2 for Nagi if I remember correctly, both of which happen at just the right time, which made the relationship between the two seem all the more real to me. (It's not like Koiken Otome, where you are showered in H-scenes fairly early on.)
The fact that Nagi is the true heroine in the game is so, so right. She is a really great character, and her paired up with Kanae makes for a fantastic couple. One thing that did dissapoint me a little with the game was Nagi's normal ending, which in all honesty, is a "bad" ending, not a "normal"/"good" one. (It's very bittersweet.) The fact that you HAVE to play through the rest in order to unlock the true ending makes the time between the real Nagi ending and the "bad" one too great, and if you are going to play the game, I honestly recommend getting a 100% save file, so you can do the true ending in all it's glory right after Nagi's normal end.
 
The rest of the cast and a conclusion
The rest of the cast in Seisai no Resonance is great, with a few rather standard template characters like Yuu and Mako, but even they are quite interesting, and although I didn't play their routes, I very much enjoyed what I saw of them in the common route and Nagi's route+ the true end. My favorite character besides Nagi and Kanae has to be Yayako, Nagi's only friend before Kanae. She is such a hilarious character, and I will definitely be playing her route at some point. (And yes, that is a cat on her head.)

 
Overall, Seisai no Resonance is a really great yurige with an interesting plot, well written romance and an interesting cast. The gameplay, although well made, serves more as a distraction from the story, and could in all honesty have been removed. But, despite that, I really enjoyed the game, and would strongly recommend it to all yuri fans.
(The game's opening, for those interested)

Second bi-weekly update, and oh boy things happened since the last one. There's a lot to talk about, so buckle up your seatbelts.
MAJO KOI NIKKI
Progress is steady, we made a new table to display it in our website, so goodbye the shitty one I did at the beggining, now it will show exact numbers and specific routes. You can check it out here:  https://lunatranslationstestsite.wordpress.com/projects-2/projects/progress/ . One of our translators is having some issues right now but he'll be back next week, so yeah, no problem about that.
Apart from that, here are the numbers:
13700 / 40208 (34.1%) Translated
7356 / 40208 (18.3%) Edited
4160 / 40208 (10.3%) TLC'ed 
5640 / 40208 (14.0%) Proofread
4298 / 40208 (10.7%) QC'ed (just the prologue; we probably won't be spinning up QC again for a while)
If you guys want  a more detailed summary of the progress in this project check out Fred's report here.
Witch's Garden
We decided to focus entirely on the common route as of now instead of dividing our forces in the existing routes. The common route has advanced a lot and it's now over the 50% mark and we will hopefully finish it soon, but yeah, until that happens that has been the only notable advancement in the project. All the other numbers have stayed relatively equal comparing the to last week's because we decided not to put much editing work yet. Sorry about it, but this is how it goes.
Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to.

(Raw, unedited sneak peek.)
This has been one of our newest projects, the team has been gathered and everyone is very active as of now. You can check out more detailed info about the entire team that is working on it in our website, but I'll still make a list of them here. Progress is going very quickly but steadily at the same time, members are motivated and things are going well regarding this front. Now I'll list the completion of scripts as of now (we're still building a way to get the progress in a % instead of script completion) and the members list:
Team Roster (This team is not final and is subjected to change)
Mitch (Leader/Translator) Status:Mitch's PC died like a week ago or so, so while he's out of the game, @Dergonu will cover his leadership. Mitch personally asked for him to do the task. Octamatron (Translator) Nohara (Translator) Takeshira (Editor) Archonoffail (Proofreader Aizen-Sama (Coordinator)  
Now, for the completion of the scripts as of now:
Translation - 45/146 scripts finished.
TLC - 18/146 completed (Prologue is almost finished!)
Editing - 1/146
Proofreading  - 0/146
 I'll complete the table in our website whenever I'm able to, because I don't really have that much time to do it right now. Expect bi-weekly news of this project as well from now on.
Tsui Yuri
For some of you this may come out as a surprise, for others not. That's right, Dergonu's team decided to join us yesterday after several talks we had over these past few weeks. If you want to know more about this just check Derg's post here, but for those who are lazy I'll just quote him here:
"So first of all, me and my team will be joining Luna Translations. Progress wise, this shouldn't mean much, (in fact it might pick up a bit, as we got some help from them to fill a few missing staff positions.)
For those wondering why, I just really like the way they do things over there, and after having spoken with their leader for quite some time, I decided to join forces with their group. So yeah, not much will change really, but we are now officially a part of Luna Translations! (Hey, this means we'll finally have a progress page outside of Fuwa!)"
I'll briefly disect this statements. First of all, we filled the positions of QC, Beta Testing and TLC as Dergonu asked for us to do. And yes, very soon we'll insert his project as one of ours in our website, just like the other three that we have right now. Personally, it's a pleasure to have him on our team and he'll be a great addition to our ranks.
The Team
Dergonu (Leader/Translator) Meatbun (Editor) Shiruve (TLC) Archonoffail (QC) TamakiSakura (Beta Testing) Aizen-Sama (Coordinator) The progress as of now (copy-pasted from Derg's thread of the project):
Opening
Translated: 100% (26/26)
Edited: 100% (26/26)
QCed: 0% (0/26)
Common
Translated: 100% (1662/1662)
Edited: 100% (1662/1662)
QCed: 0% (0/1662)
Ichika
Translated: 14% (306/2183)
Edited: 13% (277/2183)
QCed: 0% (0/2183)
Futaba
Translated: 100% (2001/2001)
Edited: 100% (2001/2001)
QCed: 0% (0/2001)
Total
Translated: 68% (3995/5872)
Edited: 68% (3966/5872)
QCed: 0% (0/5872)
Last but not least, I want to briefly talk about Hanasaki Work Spring. Long story short, we got a very serious warning saying that if we didn't stop we could get into legal trouble. Basically, we got a Cease and Desist (C&D) so sadly all efforts regarding this project have been stopped as of now. Sorry to everyone who followed us because of Hanasaki.
Anyways, that's all for this update, as always if you have any questions just post them either in our website or here.
Have a nice week everybody, and until next time.
 

What an eventful week this was.
First up, some progress on both the editing and QC was made. Now, it isn't the most, but progress is always progress, and I'm happy about it. We'll try to make some amount of progress every week.
Second up, I had my hands full polishing some things and making our very own Discord server, now open for public. So, if you have some questions, want to chat with the staff, or just bitch me about how much of a fuckboy I am, go on ahead.
Now without further ado, here's the link to the server.
You can also get the link from the main page, in Recruitment, and in Contact Us.
Progress thus far:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 33,9%
QC: 20,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Until next week.

Another week, another update.
Nothing much this week, editing had a nice bump of progress is moving along nicely.
Also, one of our two QCs gone MIA came back, so I'll be updating the staff now. He had some issues with his computer breaking down and thus he went MIA after one or two weeks after starting this project, but I'm glad he's back.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 32%
QC: 18,2%
Proofreading: 0%

Well, as most of you know by now, I completely obliterated all the links concerning BiMan1's prologue patch. This was because of two reasons:
Because it was terrible in every possible way to put it frankly. In order to make room for this post. The prologue patch was bad, really bad. The sentences were akward, spacing was weird, translations at some points didn't even make sense, etc, etc. That's why I've been fixing the first quarter of the script; retranslating, modifying and editing the script along with perfecting the engine this starting and last week. Doing UTF-8, some hex editing, final image editing and resource editing.
It was quite rough, but I finally got everything according to my wishes, and the price for my naivety has been paid back. Anyways! I present to you my hard work and labor:
Prologue Patch 2.0
Probably another 10~ hours down to drain, but it was worth it. The new and improved prologue patch (or well, partial patch at this point, but whatever)!
Features:
- Completely polished and finished engine, fully translated by me. Includes all buttons, menus, extras and other minor things.
- Music track names are translated, although I didn't intend on ever translating them.
- Translates the dialogue all the way to the end of the first H-scene.
- The two internal menus:
Are translated to these:
Things to note:
- The dialogue text is not in its final version that it will be in the final release, so keep that in mind. The patch, however, shouldn't have any typos.
- The amount of text ranslated in this improved patch is quite a bit more, because I wanted something more grand and of course, to make up to you for the travesty that was the original prologue patch.
- The text after the first H-scene will continue as Japanese, unlike the gibberish it was in the original patch. Sorry about that.
- All of the previous prologue patch download links are now going to be replaced with this version's link.
Download Link:
https://mega.nz/#!C8FDiagC!xeW7-MPcjsZWm5ebycEnEXJ66y-Ld7H6ojTa0yYF4b0
Install instructions:
Download the patch from the link above and open the .zip file. Drag & drop the new .exe into -呪われし伝説の少女-1, and data8.pack into -呪われし伝説の少女-1/GameData.  Launch the game through the new .exe file and have fun.

Time for another update, actually on Saturday for once.
Nothing special happened this week, QC isn't perpetually in an Ice Age any longer, and got a nice nump in progress, but there has been no editing this week, sadly.
Aizen-sama, the guy who you might know from MajoKoi and WG translation projects is now QC'ing this project, so steady progress in that front should be secured now.
Now I just need to do something about steady editing progress.
Anyways, progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 22,9%
QC: 8,5%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Till next week.

Visual Novel Translation Status (06/25/2016)
Okay, for all French reader or user here, don't worry. What I mean here is the title for opening song of one VN in image header (Grisaia no Meikyuu) in French (Because Grisaia like to use French, so I decided to use the Frech from opening title for this week review). The opening title was World's End, and I must admit it was quite catchy, although I still thinking Kajitsu was enough. But if you want to play Meikyuu, go ahead and beware of cliffhanger at the end.
Anyway, here's my VNTS Review for this week and sorry for a bit late here. As for this week, we had many progress from fan translation alone. While for Sekai and Mangagamer, it was still their usual. However, this week we had surprise from other segment. So I think I'll start from Mangagamer section first, then Fan Translation, Sekai, and finally Other. Oh, beforehand as the opening news for anyone who cares, we had Sonicomi entering Golden Master according to JAST Twitter here (I should report it at last week, but I forgot).
Mangagamer
Nothing too excited if we looking from their progress, although full translation of Da Capo 3 was of course welcome news here (At least Kouryuu managed to fulfill his promise by fully translating it before AX 2016, or to be exact 11 or so days before it). But even after translating finished there's still editing (Which right now it was at 98%), scripting, and beta testing. Hopefully they'll managed to release Da Capo 3 this year. For more info, this VN was had some history once again with Fuwanovel. I'll try to elaborate more later.
For other progress, we had Pygmalion 16% edited, Fata Morgana fandisc 18% translated, Imopara 2 48% translated and a quarter edited, and Kuroinu 80% translated and 21% edited. Not much comment needed here, other than if Pygmalion need 2 weeks for 8% editing progress, will it fully edited at December first week I wonder (And obviously it'll be released in 2017 duh). I think that's all for Mangagamer section this week. Oh, and by the way none of the project was in scripting if you still curious how about Mangagamer will give us news in regard of their in scripting project.
Fan Translation
We had so many progress from here. Let me try to round up all of them here.
Hanasaki had Hikari's route 16% translated. By the way admin Tay, you mistaken Inori for Hikari. The right one once again it was Hikari's route that translated at 16%. Majokoi was at 17.08% translated and 10.68% edited. By the way, the team was in need of 2 beta testers. If you interested, just look at this blog post here. Oh, and they almost had prologue patch ready for release. Bishoujo Mangekyou was fully translated and 20.3% edited. Arcadeotic said the release date could be in a few months (Hopefully this year). Tsui Yuri was 40% translated and 30% edited. Kanobito was had 110 scripts left to translated according to @mitchhamilton. Good luck to endure more sex scene Mitch, because from VNDB and some review I knew that this game had high sex count. Majikoi A-1 fandisc was released. Good for hardcore Majikoi fan I guess. Although I didn't care too much about this, I'm still thanking the team for completing original Majikoi translation project though. Tsuki no Yorisou project was finally added to the VNTS. Congratulations, and since if we look at the overall translation progress it was quite hard to tell if this project was advancing or not, I'll just report the progress from the route. And for this week we had prologue and common route fully translated, and Luna route was at 15% translated. Astral Air was touching 90% progress for both translation and editing (Actually each week before the percentage was the progress for both), or to be exact the progress itself was at 92.50% (Too bad it wasn't 4% progress though (Only 3.67% progress), but I'm still grateful okay). Okay, since Tay already said congratulation to Chuee at his Twitter, let me said congratulations for very big progress to the translator himself, @SupremeTentacle. Okay, I think that's all for roundup this week at Fan translation section. For last word, I think this section was had most exciting if we look at the progress, although for the release it was quite not so exciting to me though (Only Majikoi A -1 fandisc, although once again if you hardcore Majikoi fan go ahead and play it).
Sekai Project 
Actually also their usual once again if we look at their progress. Okay for the opening news, congratulations for very big success kickstarter for Princess Knight (Around 36,000 fund gathered, which was 3 times original goal (12,000)). And this week we had 2 projects completed in term of translation progress (Darekoi and WEE Episode 3), while we also had one almost completed translation project here (Nashville was translated at 98.04%). For more progress, we had Maitetsu was at 13.09% translated and Chrono Clock was at 20.95% translated. For My Little Kitties, well I think it's like Nekopara, only we had one catgirl and also we had Sakura Ayane and Uchida Maaya working as seiyuu there somehow in Korean VN (By the way, I remember that their role at Gochiusa was Cocoa and Sharo respectively). As for the biggest release from Sekai, it was obviously Meikyuu and I think I'd commented enough both on forum and the first paragraph.
Other
Okay, actually other than Corona Blossom Chapter 1 which almost funded at this point (Only 489 left to be funded) there's no update from this section. But this section was had surprised us. The surprise was ChuSingura 46+1 Chapter 1 was released and free to play at the Steam. It means that the Kickstarter was real, if it's a bit unrefined. Actually from some review that I'd read, ChuSingura was one of very good VN, and actually this release could maybe introduce the good VN to the people outside Japan. Although if I may said, this release had the problem. Not in term of translation or the censorship (The censorship reason was actually understandable because unlike MoeNovel case, this time there's a reason that they had experience to released it on PSP before), but more in engine which one user said it was more likely caused by the engine wasn't fitting for the VN itself and more fitting to the mobage. Hopefully if JAPAN or NextNinja still willing to release next ChuSingura chapters, they will fix the engine to make the game more comfortable to play. Also hopefully the JAPAN will to fix the communication with the fan. Oh, and for last word, if I may praise JAPAN here, it would be their decision to release ChuSingura Chapter 1 because from there we could see of how serious they were actually by sort of showing translation example.
I think that's all for this week, and sorry if I miss some progress. See you next week.
PS - Forgot one more progress, and it's Bokuten. For Bokuten, right now it was 95% edited.

So this time I will review this doujin freeware kinetic visual novel created by Keinart Lobre which I enjoyed it a lot and I thought it needed a review for how good it was. I'm kinda lazy so this will be a pure text review and nothing more (sorry maybe I'll add some pics in the future xD )

The story follows the life of Ciarán Endyein and his friends, Ciarán is in last year of high school, a few month from graduation. He spend his time doing jokes and pranks with his friends Ziva Shani a wanna be psychologist transfer student girl that constantly tries to psychoanalyze Ciarán and his long time friend Ausse Ealdwine a pervert guy who only thinks about women all the time.
Ciarán is what you can call a pragmatic person, one that is constantly saying witty comments or full of irony, teasing his friends, doing crazy stuffs, starting speeches for no reason which always end in a comical way, he calls himself the Joker or clown of the class along with his friends. He reminded me a lot to Morita Kenichi from Sharin no Kuni and that's always a good thing because there is a serious lack of those types of characters in visual novels. 
He is also a writer, he usually writes things in his little notebook that is always carrying around with him and because of this Ziva is always trying to analyze the reason behind that.
Little spoilers ahead:
The story really begins when he tells his friends some story about certain figure that he bought and got lost in the middle of the delivery and someone sent him an email about it, a really weird blackmail email which is not clear if it is actually a threat , some kind of joke or actually someone crazy writing nonsense.
End of spoilers
In the process of finding the real culprit behind that email Ciarán meets two new characters, a little girl (the loli) called Claire Argyris which is an airhead, a bit shy, constantly lost in her own world, saying things out of place but that from time to time will leave Ciarán speechless because she is not what it seems and last Luce Aurea, she is a kinda a tomboy but not to an extreme, I don't want to reveal too much about this character or Claire either. (There is another character but I can't say anything about him xD )
So far you might think that this is your typical visual novel, some slice of life with comedy but there is more than meets the eye, aside from the excellent comedy (yes it is actually really funny, most of the time with good humor) and the good pace that this novel has because it doesn't get boring through out the 10 or more hours that the novel last, there are times when the characters have this conversations about life, happiness, things they want to be, expectation from others, a bit of philosophy in the middle that reminded me a lot to subarashiki hibi WARNING: RANTS ABOUT SUBAHIBI AHEAD (if you don't like to read bad things about it don't read it.) XD  this time it made sense and it wasn't forced than your throat in the most boring and weird way with scenes that went on and on and on just to get to the freaking point >_> END OF THE RANTS. The characters are well developed and all of them are very interesting, all of them with their own motivation and purposes, they are not there just to fill the gap, for example Claire is not the "loli" type just because the writer wanted a loli type between the girls.
The music was good I think there are like 33 tracks and some of them are really good and stuck with me even after I finished reading the novel.
About the art it was good too, maybe it lacked on the GCs a little bit but it is understandable, still the few once that you will encounter are really well done and they are in my opinion perfectly placed for moments that really deserve it. The sprites of the characters are good too, the artist is Bonkiru he is really talented ( image not from the vn xD ), so you can expect to see some good art.
After reading the novel I had to re-read it again, yes it is that type of novel where you need to read it a second time because you discover new things that you missed the first time(specially to make sense some parts of the plot) and since I read it in Spanish the first time I did it in English the second, which brings me to the language topic, the translation was done pretty smooth, there were some jokes here and there that they didn't translate 100% but they were still funny.
Overall I think this is one of those few exception to the OELVNs, it doesn't try to copy or mimic the Japanese visual novels, it's not about a Japanese boy (thanks good!) and even if the main character is in high school you wont find the cliche plot from the jap vns, it's also not a harem, yes even if it looks like one it is not.
Right now is on BETA but the developer is asking for some help (he needs proofreaders) so maybe you want to wait until it's release or read it right now, either way I'm sure it wont disappoint you.
Link to the thread of the novel

Beat Blades Haruka review,
By Dergonu, Fuwanovel
 
Beat Blades Haruka is a gameplay oriented nukige released by Alice Soft, which was recently translated and licensed by Mangagamer. The game offers 150 H-scenes, ranging from normal vanilla scenes to darker things like rape and beastiality. The game's appeal is clearly rooted in it's H-content, but does that mean that's everything the game has to offer?
 

 
In Beat Blades Haruka you play as Ikusabe Takamaru, a boy who desperately wants a girlfriend. His friend, Narika, keeps getting in the way of his possible romances, something that irritates him quite a bit. But soon, his fairly normal life of being rejected by women and half-assing himself through school quickly comes to a halt when the beautiful ninja Haruka, who has traveled to our time from the past, suddenly appears in Takamaru's life.
Chasing the evil Noroi who has lept through time with his follwers in order to turn the world into chaos, Haruka and her fellow Cresent moon members turn to Takamaru for help. It turns out, Takamaru is a descendant of the Dragonian, meaning he has the power to transfer strength to the blades of the crescent moon. (The blades being female ninjas.) This power, SP, is transfered from the Dragonian to the blades by ... Having sex.
Takamaru's mission is to use the blades at his disposal to fight the four Tetra Sealers, Noroi's most powerful subordinates, take down the towers which connect to Noroi's realm, and to stop him once and for all.
During the game, the player gets a whole lot of choices that will allow them to take full control of their destiny. Will you be the good guy, fighting to stop Noroi? Or will you give in to your dark desires, using the blades as tools for your own pleasure and gain?
Offering a large variety of different endings, Beat Blades Haruka is a very unique gameplay nukige that allows its player to choose a lot more than just a singular ending, but they have the ability to impact the very way the entire game is played.
 

The gameplay:
During the story, a big part of your time will be spent preparing your heroines for battle. During the gameplay parts of the VN, you will be matched up against an enemy. You can spend SP, (sex power), that you accumulate through dragon syngery, (sex), to unleash powerful attacks against your opponent, and you train your heroines stats through either dragon synergy, training, castle raids or defeating enemies. The lower your stats are compared to your opponent, the harder it is to win. The stats highlited in blue, like the defense in this picture, means the stat is underleveled compared to your opponent, and the chances of winning are smaller. By losing a fight against a male Kainin, one of Noroi's lieutenants, the heroine will be raped and an option to skip the following rape H-scene will appear. (Unless you disable that feature in the option menu.)
The gameplay is entertaining, though it is a little difficult at first. Getting used to what all the different stats does is a little bit hard and overwhelming, and the stats are also a little poorly balanced. For instance, by stacking a large amount of reflex, you will be able to sweep through the game, as your character will essentially never miss, and she will also dodge a lot of the opponent's attacks. But if it's the other way around, and your reflex stat is low but your other stats are high, you still wont do much damage, as most of your attacks will be dodged. Basically, there is too much focus on reflex, something that makes combat a little bit imbalanced at certain points in the game. Your opponents gets really strong in the late game, meaning their reflex stats are high, and so if you didn't train your heroine correctly, a bad end is waiting for you. (If you are defeated by a sealer, you get a bad end and a game over.)
Still, these flaws aside, the gameplay is enjoyable. It's fun training up your heroine, either choosing to clear out the streets to protect the people like the good guy, or simply being an asshole and having your heroine raped over and over. (This increases her stats a great deal, however it gives you + brutality, and if the heroine is raped too much, it can lead to a brutal bad ending.) The variety offered to you makes playing the game a second, third or fourth time fun.
 

The phase system, Libido and your dice
While we are still on the gameplay part of the VN, there is a few things to note. The game itself is split into four parts, 3 phases and then actual story. The 3 phases are morning, afternoon and night phase. Between these phases the game's story progresses, and you see normal VN style dialogue as well as choices that you can use to impact the story, as well as your heroine's stats.
During the morning and afternoon phase, you either train up your heroine by having sex, raise your libido or rest, in order to get more dice recovered. The night phase is spent actually fighting your opponents, and going on castle raids.
(What exactly are these dice and how do they work?)
The dice system in Beat Blades Haruka is what let's you make your "moves" in the phases. You get X amount of dice each day, based of your dice recovery. You can have a maximum of 8 dice at a time. The dice can be a number between 1 and 6, and the dice itself is used to "pay for" actions. As an example, if you want to sleep with haruka to increase some of her stats and her SP, you have to "pay" some dice. The lower levels of dragon synergy are cheaper, but give less stats, the higher levels are more expensive but give you more stats. The system is very forgiving. If you roll a 7 on something that needs 8 to complete, 7 will be subtracted from the action, so that in the next phase, it will only cost 1 dice. The dice itself is based off RNG, though do note that it is essentially impossible to soft reset for. Still, with the way the system is made, soft reseting for dice is not even needed, so there is nothing to worry about there. If you do it right, completing the game in the 99 days given to you is a walk in the park.
Lastly, libido is a strange stat. It is what makes your dice recovery higher. Every 10 points of libido, your dice recovery goes up by 1. What does this mean? It means that after the night phase, you will get back X dice. So if you have a dice recovery of 5, the next day following a night phase, you are given 5 dice. Raising your libido is simple, and is done by either having sex with a female Kainin, choosing an option at a choice screen with (libido) next to it, or just clicking "raise libido".
 

The game's value beyond H-content?
We have already talked about the gameplay side of the game. It's entertaining, though very repetative and it's also focused strongly around H-scenes. (In order to prepare your heroine for a battle you have to have sex, and if you lose a battle, you get into a rape scene. H is a big part of this nukige, obviously.)
But what about the story itself? Music, art, characters and such. What is the value of the game outside just the H-scenes?
 
The character designs and art in the game is overall very nice. A lot of work seems to have been put into each character's design, though the personalities of the the main characters are fairly bland and simple. Most work seems to have been put into the kainins and tetra sealers. They are all very badass, pretty, hot, what have you. Each one of them has many small details that stand out, and are just overall very well made. The main characters are by no means poorly designed, but in comparison they do fall a little short.
The art itself is very nice, with animated cut-scenes, well drawn backgrounds and detailed character sprites.
The music in the VN is pretty good, offering a variety of tracks for different situations that fits well with the atmosphere of the scene.
 
The story itself is what it is. The game does take itself seriously; it's not like it just jokes around and put all focus on H. The story is decent. There is moments where it will take you by suprise, certain moments that are more emotional than others, though the actual story is fairly short. The main focus of the dialogue aspects of the game lies in the different scenes you can get with the heroines and side characters by making choices. If you focus on one girl a lot, increasing her love hearts in the game, you will go on dates with her and get close with her. If you are an asshole and just have your blades raped and defeated, you will get unique scenes that deal with this.
The actual main story that remains the same through all playthroughs is therefore minimal, as the game wants to keep the focus on your choices as the player. This is both a flaw and a strength in the VN. It's a flaw because it means that ultimately, the story itself is slightly underwhelming and short, but it's also a strength because it does mean the player feel like he or she is more in control of the outcome.
 
All in all Beat Blades Haruka is a solid VN, offering unique and entertaining gameplay, a big variety of choices that lets the player impact the game's ending, though it does lack some impact in its delivery of the story.
 
+ Entertaining gameplay
+ Good art, music and character designs
+ A huge variety of choices that let's the player choose how the game is played
 
- Slightly underwhelming main story
- The main characters are a little bland and some more time should have been put into them
- The stat system is a little imbalanced

Hello ladies and gentlemen of fuwa! Today I will be sharing with you a little writing project I've been working on. Thanks so much to Forgetful Frank for agreeing to edit the book for me! When I started I was editing it myself, which is slow work and I often miss mistakes in my own writing, and so this way it should be a lot better for everyone involved Also, a big thanks to Melowbee for making the illustration for Kitsune! It's a wonderful confidence boost to actually have someone make drawings for my story!   Do keep in mind that the book hasn't been fully edited yet, and so a few mistakes here and there is to be expected. Once the book has been fully edited, I'll update the PDF!
 
On to the book:
 
キツネと私 - Kitsune and me
 
Summary:
After spending half a day locked in her clubroom at school, Sakura heads home in the middle of the night, in pouring rain. Taking refuge from the terrible conditions, she stumbles into and old and mysterious shrine. Here she discovers a strange little artifact that she thinks may have been stolen from a museum. Wanting to get it checked out the next day, she brings the artifact home. But as the artifact ends up coming to life in the form of the ditsy, energic and completely stunning Kitsune, Sakura's life will never be the same again...
 
Information on the book:
Kitsune and me is primarily a comedy, focusing on the relationship between the main character Sakura, and her new guardian ... fox-girl, Kitsune Mimiko. When writing it I focus primarily on having fun and silly interactions between the two, and purposely try to use clichés from common visual novel, anime, manga and light novel works. It's a fun little project I recently decided to start working on, and it's not meant to be taken too seriously. The story offers elements of comedy, romance (yuri), fantasy and action. The structure is fairly similar to most VNs, in that it starts of fluffy and is riddled with mainly humor, and then it gets more dramatic towards the end.
 
Also, note that this is written in English, though I use certain words and phrases from Japanese. Again, this isn't meant to be taken too seriously. Words such as bentou will be in the book to keep the essence of the "Japanese setting" and words such as "ne" will be left in Kitsune's sentences, as they are a part of her speech pattern and that doesn't translate as well into English in my opinion. I also keep Japanese titles when I see fit, like using Kitsune's name. For these parts, translations are on the side of the Japanese symbols.
 
DIGITAL PDF DOWNLOAD FOR THE BOOK!
 
A sketch of Kitsune made by Melowbee!

 
Art made by Melowbee, thank you x100!!
Editing is done by Forgetful Frank, thanks so much for that!
Special thanks to Nosebleed for helping me with Kitsune's name!

Well, this week was a wondorous adventure, did bunch of other things OTHER than translating.
*sigh*
Well, I've almost fully mapped teh tools and such.
Oh, I allso got about 17% of the translation checked in Japanese.
Nothing else much, the next week will most likely be about the same: almost no translation done, a lot of other things done, but what are you going to do about it? Such is life.
Progress thus far:

See you next week!
-  Arcadeotic

Before I begin, I just wanted to say that I've gotten some feedback lately that my "reviews" have been fairly ... Laid back and not too serious. This is completely true, and I've written this with that feedback in mind. This is a much more objective, serious review of a game that I've wanted to review for a while. Hope you enjoy reading it, and please keep giving me feedback that can help me improve, I do appriciate it.
 
Shuffle! Review,
By Dergonu, fuwanovel
 
Shuffle is a romance / fantasy visual novel originally released by Navel in 2003/2004. The game was later licensed and translated by Mangagamer, along with its two sequels Tick! Tack! and Really? Really! (You can buy the games here: (nsfw content on the game's page.)
In the game you play as Tsuchimi Rin, a fairly normal high school student. When Rin was younger he met two beautiful young girls by chance, and spent the day playing with them. It turns out though, that these fate encounters would later change Rin's life forever.

Shuffle offers 5 romantic routes as well as a common route, the story featuring elements of romance, drama, fantasy and comedy. (Note that a newer version of the game called Essence+ offers a whole roster of new characters and heroine routes not found in the original release, but this version is un-translated, and is not the version covered in this review.)
The main story takes place in a fantasy universe where two portals have opened in the human world. These portals connects our world to the world of the Gods and the Devils. Contrary to popular belief, Devils and Gods are not omnipotent almighty beings which hate one another, but instead they are fairly similar to us, and the two races live alongside each other in peace. The Devils and Gods do have magical powers, and certain features does make them look slightly different, the primary attribute being their long ears. In the game, we follow Tsuchimi Rin in his everyday life. It has been 10 years since the portals opened, and Gods, Devils and humans live alongside each other peacefully.
 
The overall look of the game is very nice for such an old novel. The art is pretty to look at, with nice sprites and colorful, well drawn backgrounds.  The menu is detailed and easy to navigate, offering a great variety of settings to improve your experience. There is a date display in game, and choices will affect which heroine's route you enter. The choices are very plain and easy to understand, often literally containing the name of the characters to make it easy to choose the heroine route. In addition, the game has no bad endings, so playing it blindly with no walkthrough is risk free.
Once you enter a heroine route, a sprite of the heroine will be displayed during scene changes, so you know when you have entered a route. All these things taken into consideration, Shuffle is a very laid back and casual visual novel experience, but that in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 
The music in shuffle goes hand in hand with the other elements we have discussed so far. It's very light and very simple. Each one of the normal tracks played throughout the primary part of the common route and the start of the heroine routes are simple, light and cute. They offer simple instrumental music with slight variation that glide smoothly into the background.
The tracks unlocked later on during the final dramatic parts of the routes, feel like they are on a different level from the earlier ones. They do a better job of making the player feel engaged in the game, as they feature more detailed instrumental music which fits the setting very well.
The music tracks in the game are all enjoyable of course, and fit nicely with the feel of the game, but if more effort was put into making all the tracks like the last few ones, then it would allow for even greater immersion in the game, something that could possibly make the game better than it already is.  
Still, every track is very comfortable to listen to and none of them are disruptive in any way.
 

 
Among the five heroine's routes, each story offers a fairly similar structure. It starts of very light, introducing one small piece of information casually that will later turn into a dramatic twist to the route. This small catalyst is easy enough to spot early on, and figuring out vaguely what is going to happen is fairly easy. That being said, the game still does a decent job at hiding exactly what it is that is going on. The primary part of the heroine's route will be about Rin and the girl falling in love, and developing their relationship. The game offers 2 H-Scenes for each character, with CG variations based off your choice in the route, and an epilogue which takes place after the events of the main route. As the story progresses, the catalyst which was introduced earlier will start to become more present in the story, and a big climax towards the end filled with drama will occur. This can remind you of a normal nakige build up, but the last dramatic part is so short and gets overpowered by the lightheartedness of the previous part of the game so strongly, that it can't be called a nakige at all.   
 

 
The game re-uses a fair share of the same situations and conversations during the early part of the heroine routes. These only have certain new lines of dialogue, making the scene itself the same. This comes off as lazy, and gets old after the second route. At the very least, short new events should have occurred during these parts to make these scenes slightly more entertaining. This is luckily only the case for the beginning of the route, and the later parts are all completely unique to each heroine.
Sia's route is supposed to have two variations, but similar to the previous problem mentioned above, they simply re-use the scenes with tiny changes in the dialogue. The final experience is the same, and so it feels almost pointless to have these two variants, as they simply don't do anything majorly different from one another. It is not a good / bad end type of deal, but instead two sides of the same ending, with all the scenes identical, except for certain variations in dialogue and the character's behavior. This is a little bit of a shame, as Sia's route is very good. Had the two sides of the route been pulled off in a better way, this route would have been even better.
 

Primula, Asa and Sia's routes are the only ones that has "believable drama".  The other two routes doesn't make you feel like what is happening is really a big deal at all. It is trivial drama that doesn't have any real impact compared to what happens in the routes mentioned above. This is not to say that the routes are bad because of this, but it does make the game feel a little inconsistent, as if the two routes which feel less impactful are played after the other three, then you won't really be that pleased with the end result. Actually, one of these routes has to be played before Primula's route is unlocked, so only one of the routes actually have that problem.
The endings in the routes also feel a little bit rushed. Once the drama is introduced, the player has almost no time to let it sink in and feel the effects of it, before it is resolved. This makes the novel lose some potential, as it doesn't feel like there is any "risk" to it at all. It's almost as if the game is saying that something bad could happen, but then it instantly corrects itself, saying don't worry, we wouldn't actually do this!
Still, with those factors in mind, the story in the game is still enjoyable. The actual core of the heroine routes does a good job of making the player care for the heroine and about what happens to her, and seeing as the game instantaneously lets you know that it is a very laid back, plain and casual experience, the slightly rushed endings and not overly dramatic parts are to be expected.  
 

 
To sum up, Shuffle! is a very light and simple, yet effective visual novel. It does a good job of making the player care for its characters, as long as the player is willing to accept the game's light hearted and simple atmosphere.
The music and art in the game is well made, especially the art and backgrounds. Considering the age of the game, it is in fact quite pleasantly surprising to see such nice artwork in the game. The music could have had even more effort put into it though, as there is a clear difference in quality between a few of the tracks.
The routes are a little inconsistent, and offer parts which are essentially just copy pasted with slightly altered dialogue. This alongside the predictability of certain events, the game loses a bit of its potential.
 
+ Nice art, music and well made menu makes for an enjoyable experience.
+ The story is enjoyable overall, and does a good job of making the reader care for the heroines
 
- The drama in the later parts of the game ends far too fast, and are essentially pointless
- The game loses potential with the lack of variation in its re-used scenes, especially in Sia's route
 
Rating: These things taken into account, shuffle! gets a 7.8/10 rating
 
 

Yet another update.
I was busy, but at least got something done.
6th or 7th H-scene done. Finally the story is progressing, and the heroine is finally showing something to like about.
Nothing else to say, but now that there is an official TL thread, I'll be posting my progress there and my wordpress, so there won't be a progress bar here, but I'll try to post my thoughts on every week's translation here. Good? Good.
Progress:
 
See you next week!
-  Arcadeotic

Hey everyone! So it's time for another review, this time of a yuri title that I just finished last night, Kimihane Kanojo to kanojo no koi suru Ikkagetsu. I got recommended this a little while back and decided to read it because I thought it was just a short yuri nukige. But boy was I wrong ...
 
The story:
The story is quite lighthearted and simple, three girls who think they saw an angel when they were younger live together in a dorm. These three girs get along very well and the story is just their daily lives unfolding before our eyes. Or, rather, it is actually being seen by someone else. The story is told in a third person narrative, being looked at by a mystery person. The third person narrative is quite interesting; its something I haven't seen much off in VNs, and it made for a fun experience, reading an untranslated novel in the third person.
It's a novel strongly built on the slice of life element. The story is split into 4 chapters, with 4 routes, each route has its own unique twist on the four chapters, with new CG, dialouge and events.
The routes are each coupling, Rin x Hina, Hina x Fumi, Fumi x Rin, and finally a secret route unlocked after the completion of the previous three.
Each scene during the game tends to be quite specific and short, but in return there are many of them. So let's say they are sitting in the living room having dinner, there is a short sequence where they do that, then it suddenly switches to a different scene, let's say, they are now at school. This is actually a very comfortable way to read an untranslated novel for me, as its very easy to get the context of the conversation. Also, story wise, there is a reason for this specific short scene duration, and it is revealed during the last, hidden route.
There is an enforced playing order, where a new route is unlocked after the current one is finished. Also, there are NO choices in the game. You get some unique dialouge choices in the form of these screens:
However these have no effect on the routes and the story at all, and they are simply small unique scenarios.
All in all, the story is very light and cute, the language in the novel is simple, but it still keeps you entertained the entire time. Similar to Sono Hanabira, it focuses strongly on it's character interatcion.
 
The characters:
The story offers very few characters, only four of which has a sprite. These four characters are the ones who make up the bulk of the game's story.
These characters are:
 
Hina:

Hina is kind of the little sister in the group. She is super adorable; a small girl with a loud voice. (She tends to yell a lot.) She does a lot of stuff that just makes you go, "aww", but unlike Fumi, she is quite ... Noisy. She isn't a fragile and gentle little girl, but rather a loud and energic one.
She spends a lot of her time yelling at Rin, and this makes her appear more like an older sister, despite her role in the little "family" being the little sister/daughter.
 
Rin:

Rin is my favorite character of the three. She is a slob, managing to put her glasses in the fridge like 8 times during the story. She sleeps in all the time and is always yelled at by the little energy bomb that is Hina. Basically everything Rin does will make you laugh. She is less innocent and more direct and frank, making her do hilarious stuff like roleplay sexual scenarios with Fumi's stuffed animals, get in bed with Fumi telling Hina to look away as "mama and papa" are going to be doing grown up stuff. She will make you laugh a lot, and thats what I loved about her.
Of course, just like the other two she has sides of her which aren't so clear, that you learn more about during the routes.
 
Fumi:

Fumi is the mother among the three. She is very polite and formal, always takes care of the housework and steps in as a peacekeeper whenever the two others start quarreling. She is gentle and adorable, but just like Rin, she has different sides to her which are discovered during the routes.
 
Lastly, Sachiko:

Umm.. She is the ... Middle aged dorm manager who keeps on touching the girls... She also tries to pay them to be painted nude. ..  uhh.. Someone call the police..?
 

 
General impressions and thoughts:
Like I said in the introduction, Kimihane looked like your average yuri nukige to me, but wow was I wrong. It is by no means a nukige; I'd probably call it a moege, (as there are only 2 H-scenes per route and quite a lot of cute and adorable, lighthearted dialouge and scenes dominate the game.)
The art in the game is really nice, with several CG variants for each scene and well done character details and sprites. This also makes the H-Scenes quite enjoyable, though like I said, the H-scenes were actually not what made me stick around for this one.
Each character has a lot of developement throughout the story, and each route brings out a new side of them that we haven't seen before. This makes each route feel unique and very enjoyable. The humor in the game is quite entertaining, and the romance is well done, though its a little bit simple and moe like. Don't expect extremely prfound and deep relationships.
Even though the story is so simple and light though, it doesn't make you feel bored or tired of what is going on. The characters keep the romantic routes interesting, but what really blew my mind was the hidden route. Once I played it, I just went... "Ohhhhh!" It did such a good job of suprising me and I think it will suprise you as well. I never saw that coming.
 
Anyways, since the game is fairly short there isn't too much else to be said. Honestly, my conclusion is this: PLAY IT! It's short, its really cute and light but at the same time it has its moments where the story really takes you by suprise. The characters are wonderfull and entertaining and the art is really nice.
 
I personally rated this a 9/10 on my VNDB, but keep in mind; I am yuri freak.
I think a more objective rating would be something like a 7.5.  But this is definitely not something you should play just because it has yuri. It's quite the good little novel, and it left me seriously pleasantly suprised.
 
That's it for today folks, thanks for reading!