Suzu Fanatic

They bit off more than they could chew - so it's not really a surprise. Though, nuking their marketing people will hurt more than help long-term. (unless they luck out and find new hires with industry experience already under their belts)

Too lazy to read through the thread, so I'll just chime in my two cents (having read the OP at least) The anti-anime thing that often rears its head is more of a general society thing, than Valve specifically (as you see it often being a scape-goat for all manner of things). I'll hesistantly call it a form of racism - or at least, "personal interpretations being misconstrued as objective truth". Someone that doesn't typically watch anime or pay attention to the styles used often make assumptions on a characters age, mistaking various characters as being younger then they actually are (and I don't just mean "legal lolis", I mean characters that DO look 17-18 to you and I - but not to an outsider). People often forget that not every group will have the same features or builds as the avrg white person. And while anime characters are obviously exaggerated and moe-blobbed a lot of the time, they typically retain the traits of the demograph it's based on~ Long story short: Baseless assumptions from outsiders - abusing their power to sate personal, arbitrary opinions.

So, I've think I'm about halfway through the commen route. Have to admit, so far it's a good read. Kind of a chill, comfy feel - though I can't say I find trains all that interesting, it's still intelligently written, and the personailities so far are expressive. seems to possess a lot more weight and texture than the typical moeges we get every couple months. If it wasn't for the obv. controversial elements, I'd recommend it to more people. Whoever wrote this, is a skilled writer - and you get the sense they actually cared about the story he/she made. I admit it's gone way beyond my expectations. I think I'd have preferred it's predecessor, for the sake of the Japanese mythology, instead of trains - but that's only a minor regret~ So far, it's a pleasant surprise compared to what I've come to expect the last few years. (though I'm kind of dreading the hscenes, based on some of the examples I've seen people mention regarding the english narration) EDIT: Huge bonus points for a Protagonist that isn't utterly infurirating. Just a nice, decent balance - not some total beta, but also not some badass alpha, just a down-to-earth guy. I think that by itself is a rare treasure, haha~

I can agree with some cases, sure - but tone of voice can convey the meaning of something like "You...." Unless a reader has voices turned off, inflection is a universal thing - anyone can tell when someone is angry, sad, happy, etc - pair that with the actual wording, and you got the intended meaning across, without adding words that could change the context and personality. Though of course that can only really be applied to things with voices. non-voiced is a different matter - though even then things like "You..." wouldn't be that difficult to understand, if the reader understands the scenes intended mood. Besides, "rude verb form" is easy with things like "tch" - or if a writer is willing to put in a bit of extra work, elaborate with a description "so-and-so clicks there tongue in irritation" or "so-and-so growls in response" As for swears in Maitetsu specifically, they are so infrequent it's not really an issue - beyond not fitting the initial meaning. A good example is Hibiki leaving in irritation from the room, and the MC says "Shit, looks like I screwed up this time" - but really, it would have fit his tone of voice (and words) a lot better with something like "Oops, guess she's mad huh?" The MC didn't even use an explicitive verb or sound in that sentence, so having a swear thrown in changes the tone of the sentence, and alters the readers perception of his personality to a tiny extent. But like I said, it's so rare in this VN, I feel somewhat silly going into it, heh.

Setting aside the eternal debate of literal vs. reimagined, the example Hiashi provided is pretty cringy. Which is disappointing - what little I've seen of the non-h narrative so far, seemed alright (except for the odd swear shoehorned in without reason). Makes me wonder if they had someone else do the hscenes? Or someone that simply didn't really want to work on the hscenes, so said "fuck it" and just trolled the readers~

Subjective. Personally I approve of the removal of excessive swearing, along with other gratuitous liberties.

Tokemi Check-in, waaaay back around '01 - '02. Was pretty good for what it was, in hindsight.

Mostly a lurker nowadays - but keeping with my yearly tradition, have some bees.

I'm not sure if there's any major differences in the writing style between the Denpasoft release and the original fantl - but having read the fantl, I actually liked Konomi's route. It's a rare thing for incest in a VN to be treated as an actual taboo - it gave it some interesting weight. The development and plot was about coming to terms with the feelings, and facing the societal bias (and the consequences) regarding the taboo itself - pretty heavy stuff tbh. "Pure love making everything all right" Wasn't really the end message I got from it, I got "there will always be adversity." And it didn't exactly end "happily ever after" - there was no real way to know what their future holds (again, based on my experience with the fantl). And even it it did, what's so irritating about the notion of "pure love should make everything all right"? John Lennon himself said "all we need is love". People all around the globe could learn a lot from such an outlook - and as someone with "many" years and hardships under my belt, I can truly admire such a unjaded belief/desire. But what can I say? Cynicism's bitter weight tends to get heavier as the years add up on some old farts like me - it's more enjoyable to see sappy ideals like that from time to time.

NNL had made a single, combined version - though finding anyone with that version nowdays is likely going to be hard. Even moreso with a save file still tucked away.