Zalor

I'm not going to argue about what defines a VN here. To be blunt, the fights over that issue - which were fairly pointless - were bad enough in the forums. That said, I am going to explain why VN terms tend to be so fuzzy and hard/impossible to pin down.

1. We are basically defining a medium that is new to us (new being a relative term, lol).
2. Pseudo-Japanisms like charage, moege, nakige, etc. are generalized terms that represent a certain type of structure and purpose to individual VNs. For people who like to nitpick, these terms really aren't fitting, because they are basically umbrella terms that contain a lot more than you'd think.
3. The Japanese otaku-media tendency to turn everything into an archetype creates an illusion of a 'universal unity of ideas'.

Of course, there are a lot of different reasons besides these, but these are some of the more obvious ones. However, perhaps the one that bothers people the most are the pseudo-Japanisms that I and some others use and have been helpfully defined (inasmuch as that is possible) by various people. I should first explain what a pseudo-Japanism is. First, as a prime example, a visual novel is a term that came from the Japanese originally, but it is one we took and redefined for our own purposes. While the term originated in Japan, it is rarely used over there and the fundamental meaning is slightly different to them than it is to us. This is similar to the pseudo-anglicanisms like 'マンション’ that litter the Japanese language.

Similarly, while the term 'moege' was coined in Japan, the actual meaning of the word changed immensely just in the past few years, as it was absorbed and reshaped by the perceptions of the Western community. Anyone who has played a 'straight moege' like Shuffle or Da Capo will understand what they are, but once you start expanding into the various other types that expanded from moege to birth new child genres, people start getting confused.

To be blunt, we've gone and created a new specialist genre that pretends to be from Japan but is really almost wholly our own, because the meanings are not, strictly speaking, matching to those in Japan anymore. Of course, in a narrow sense of the word, some are the same - such as nakige and utsuge - but in the broad sense of the word, the concept of the 'charage' is almost entirely one we created to define a type of VN that branched out and away from the VNs we define as moege.

In other words, the big mistake a lot of new and old people in the community make is in thinking these terms mean the same to the community in Japan as they do to the people here. These terms are ultimately ours, as they have been irreversibly shaped by our perceptions of their meaning in the way they are used.

For the sake of those who don't have as much experience as I do, I'll explain the Japanese tendency toward archetyping everything. First, you have to understand that Asian culture in general sees imitation as a compliment, rather than a failing or an insult. Second, Japanese thinking is hyper-conservative, despite the rich sub-cultures that have bored holes into the base of their society. This extends to otaku culture as well and is encouraged by the commercialization of new mediums and genres as they become popular. In Japan, it wouldn't be wrong to say people 'like what they recognize'. It is this that leads to archetypical characters, settings, and stories being so dominant in VNs, anime, and manga. Of course, we see the same thing over here... but it is a much slower process. In just two or three years, we can see what was new becoming an archetype in otaku media. Over here, it tends to take ten to twenty years. It is simply a function of how our cultures work. Americans tend to dislike obviously repeating themes, and as a result we have a lot of encouragement for 'creativity' and it is harder for something to become an archetype in the first place, because we move on so fast. The Japanese find something they like, then they repeat it over and over until it becomes a tradition. Modern technology has just exacerbated this tendency, when it comes to otaku culture, lol.

Edit: I should also note that the natural tendency of the Japanese is to polish things until they shine, a tendency that is reflected in their high-quality domestic products. To an extent, we can see that with VNs, as companies tend to prefer to produce a solid product that is similar if not identical to all its previous products. Unfortunately, the limitations created by that are unsuited to entertainment in general, which is the big reason why great artists and writers will all of the sudden suffer from a deep drop in quality (usually because companies want them to reproduce exactly the same VN as before, lol).

Avatar: The Last Fuwabender*
 
 
 
 
*Note: There will be no Avatar: The Last Airbender references from this point on.*
 
An avatar, also known as profile picture, is defined via Google as "An icon or figure representing a particular person in computer games, Internet forums, etc."
 
In the case of the Fuwanovel Forums, avatars typically represent one's identity, or at least represents whatever appeals to them personally at that particular point in time (such as a favorite character, "waifu", etc).
 
Many users of this forum have different ways of utilizing their avatars and through years of extensive research I have been able to group them into the following:
The Eternal: users who have had a single avatar since the beginning of their creation. ie. Zalor The Loyalist: users who have a single unique avatar that they change to variations of. Can change to another avatar, but typically returns to the original unique avatar ie. TarzanofVersailles The Bandwagoner: users who change their avatar on a whim depending on their current mood or preferences which can change over time. This can branch to Settlers who very rarely change their avatar to a new one ie. Clephas, or Travelers who change to a new avatar relatively quickly ie. Eclipsed (pre-Louise era) The Identity Crisiser: users who cycle / rotate their avatar on a frequent basis to a select few unique avatars while typically being unable to settle down on any particular one. May also become a Bandwagoner at times. ie. Kaguya-sama  
Eternals are the most powerful class of avatar users. Their very existence is so great, that if one were to ever somehow undergo an avatar change, the resulting shockwave can very well destroy the forums (an example being the fateful Taypocalypse of '14).
 
Loyalists are the second most powerful class of avatars. They are typically very fond of their avatars and only choose variations of said avatar when changing avatars, or in the case that they do choose a new avatar, they tend to revert back to the original unique one eventually.
 
Bandwagoners (subclass: Settlers/Travelers) are the common folk. Settlers are more powerful than Travelers.
 
The Identity Crisisers are the wildcards. One can never fully determine if a Crisiser has finally settled on an avatar or if the Crisiser will continue their neverending quest for their one true avatar.
 
~~
TL;DR, here are all of my avatars since the beginning of my time here on Fuwanovel (times are approx.; not all images from an era are displayed.)
 
Lurker Era (Sept)
 
 
 
 
Date A Live Era (Sept - Nov)
 
 
 
 
Kotori Era (Dec - Jan) <Love Live>
 
 
 
 
Date A Live II Era (Jan)
 
 
 
 
Charlotte Era (Feb) <Machine Doll>
 
 
 
 
Frenda Era (Feb) <Toaru Majutsu no Index>
 
 
 
 
Louise Era (Mar - Present) <Zero no Tsukaima>
 
 
 
 
 
What avatar class are you?
 
~~
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more Eclipsed's ramblings!

I wrote this response to a thoughtful commenter on Reddit.
 
I would not support a non-adult only English release of Kagura Douchuuki, with a purchase or otherwise. I would also encourage other eroge fans not to support whitewashing of titles where sexual content was an integral part of the original concept (i.e., this title and MoeNovel's If My Heart Had Wings).
 
Just because a story can be told without sex doesn't mean it should. Just because it's easier to promote a game without sexual content doesn't mean that sexual content should be removed for the sake of convenience. This isn't merely a matter of supply and demand. It's about faithfulness to the original concept of the work. As a developer, it's lazy and disingenuous to cut content just to maximize sales in a given territory, while leaving fans with no option to restore the content and enjoy the original experience. It's callous to turn one's back on fans who have been supporting the market all along so companies like Debonosu could have the opportunity to release games like Kagura Douchuuki on Steam.
 
I wrote my Kaguara Douchuuki article to notify fans of the path Debonosu has embarked on, and hopefully to persuade Debonosu to change their minds. According to dovac (CEO of Sekai Project) our earnest pleas will fall on deaf ears (in his words, "They don't care"). But at least we'll have tried.
 
Should we support developers that "don't care"? I would say that, no, we shouldn't. And if Debonosu truly "doesn't care", then I would argue they don't deserve the support of you, me, or anyone else. And when a company truly doesn't care, that'll likely manifest in more than just needless content cuts; you'll see it in the slipshod way the localization is handled. Notice how the Greenlight campaign was started without any English description (which Sekai Project rushed to donate because they didn't want the black eye of a campaign for a prominent VN failing). Notice how Debonosu's single English comment was in broken English. Does that indicate to you that Debonosu is invested in making this release a success? Does that give you confidence that the final product will be professional quality?
 
I think if Debonosu doesn't start caring more pretty quick, this release will likely be a trainwreck that will cause gameplay VN fans to cringe for years to come (not unlike what's happened with MoeNovel's release of If My Heart Had Wings).
 
[Feature image: Thomas the trainwreck]

Makoto Itou is often vilified as the worst VN protagonist ever. These people clearly haven't played Cross Days.

VNDB
Getchu

Cross Days is a retelling of the events of School Days from the perspective of Yuuki Ashikaga, a boy in the same year as Makoto Itou, the protagonist of School Days. Yuuki is childhood friends with Hikari Kuroda and a member of the library club, and his older sister Chie belongs to the basketball club. Good-natured but indecisive, he often puts the needs of others before his own because he can't muster the courage to say "no". His sister introduces him to Roka Kitsuregawa, whom he quickly develops a crush on. Roka likes him too but misunderstands his relationship with Hikari. Roka tells Yuuki she's going out with Makoto to make Yuuki jealous. Kotonoha, who frequents the library, tells Yuuki she's Makoto's girlfriend, yet Makoto's classmates say he's going out with Sekai. Swept up in romantic intrigue, Yuuki has to figure out how to convince Roka that he's serious about her while getting her to give up on Makoto.

Much of the plot of Cross Days revolves around romantic misunderstandings, often reinforced and propagated by gossip. Yuuki and Roka are the main couple, while Makoto and Kotonoha are the secondary couple. The way these relationships play out forms the crux of the plot. The story begins with Makoto in a relationship with Sekai, following the route in School Days where Makoto pairs up with Sekai almost from the start. Sekai herself is a minor character.

Unlike School Days's Makoto, the plot of Cross Days doesn't revolve around the protagonist Yuuki, and this is a core weakness. Yuuki is very much swept up in the events occurring around him, and he is unable to directly solve the problems he's confronted with. Instead, his influence is indirect--he influences other actors who have the power to change events, such as Makoto. Cross Days is as much about the various characters surrounding Yuuki as it is about Yuuki himself, and as a result the experience ends up feeling rather fragmented. Much of the game is spent viewing events from an "outside" perspective other than Yuuki's, really reinforcing the feeling that this isn't Yuuki's story. As a player, I felt alienated by the arbitrary perspective shifts that often had no direct relation to the events surrounding Yuuki.

This leads to one of the game's main issues: the hopelessly convoluted scenario. The triggers for the various branches in the game's plot are cryptic and difficult to comprehend even in retrospect, much less when you're encountering them for the first time. As a player, you end up feeling very much like Yuuki--lost and fumbling about at random as situations spin out of control in often ludicrous fashion. This is in contrast to School Days, where there was usually a clear connection between Makoto's choices and downstream consequences. The choices in this game left me befuddled, and I ended up using a walkthrough after wandering aimlessly through the scenario a few times and haphazardly hitting the major routes. In some cases, the flow diagram in-game isn't even accurate (i.e., flowing one-way from left to right)--instead you can end up on a route that retraces to an earlier branch point. The scenario was patched to fix some of the divergence issues, but this actually makes the problem even worse because it breaks the earlier fan-made guides. I was unable to get most of the endings in the boys' love route because I couldn't figure out the proper sequence of choices even after trying several different guides.

The game has many of the same problems as School Days. It crashes/hangs frequently, especially if you scene skip in a scene with a choice. The problem is more acute in Cross Days because there's no "skip to the next choice" feature as there was in School Days HQ. Like School Days, the scenario consists of many puzzle pieces intended to fit together in many different configurations--but not all the configurations tell a cohesive story. Certain paths detour around scenes that are necessary for explaining/instigating downstream events.

Cross Days features a total of 22 endings (8 are in the BL route, which I haven't fully explored). The endings I saw were all distinct. There's some distinct routes that diverge midway, such as the ones focusing on BL and Ai Yamagata. The actual divergence has nothing to do with these themes however. Sadly many of the endings have no epilogue (especially the ones ending in H-scenes), so there's a nagging lack of closure. Reflecting the overall feel of Cross Days, many of the endings are "bad ends" for Yuuki and Roka.

The game is hard to evaluate. Despite all the problems, Cross Days captivated me for several days straight. I literally did nothing in my free time except play this game. Roka makes a great main heroine, and her jealousy is positively adorable. Her push-pull relationship with Yuuki is a highlight of the game. I was disappointed however that there was no opportunity to pair up Yuuki with Kotonoha. The setting has incredible detail that emerges when you explore all the different routes, conveying the sense of a truly living world. You end up missing much of the backstory if you only play through to one or two endings. The animation is engaging, with visual cues used to convey information layered on top of the dialogue. There isn't much fluff dialogue that serves no purpose in the story.

Cross Days is a rare interactive movie VN with a highly dynamic scenario that evolves based on your choices. If that's your cup of tea, there's hardly any alternatives to the School Days series. If you liked School Days, you should give Cross Days a try--but realize that the experience is different. Cross Days was clearly intended to be experienced after School Days, so don't make this your first sampling of the series. If you didn't like School Days, you probably won't like Cross Days, as it sports one of the weakest protagonists I've come across in a VN, and makes Makoto look like Rance by comparison.

Score: 7/10 (including -1 penalty for crashes and freezes)
Recommended for fans of series who have already played School Days and Shiny Days and are hungering for more.

I played this title in Japanese. If you're interested in seeing Cross Days in English, support JAST USA's English releases of School Days HQ and Shiny Days and let JAST know you're interested in Cross Days on their new official forums.

I know many people have chimed in on the debate about what precisely VNs are to them... but the three main schools of thought pretty much come down to 'story-delivery system', 'pretty picture delivery system', and a mixture of both. To an extent, I can sympathize with all three... but I fall mostly with the 'mixture of both' school of thought with a leaning to the 'story-delivery system' end of things. Why? Because, when it comes down to it, all forms of otaku entertainment are story-delivery systems, when you get right down to it... even if that story is somewhat out there, disjointed, or so mixed in with pointless moe that it is hard to recognize. Of course, that is in the larger sense, so it is basically playing with sophistry on my part to think that way... *loves making it impossible for anyone else to win the argument*

Nonetheless, it is a valid point. I love stories, in general. I live for fiction in all its forms, though the written word is my preferred way to receive it, preferably with narrative, not just dialogue. More than anything, my taste in VNs is shaped by this simple root cause... in the end, I'm a narrative junkie who needs his fix. Chuunige like Dies Irae give me that in the most obvious form, and every once in a while, a fantasy masterpiece like Ikusa Megami Zero comes along and revives my love of world-building and deep settings. Even more rarely, I hit gold with something like Konata yori Kanata made, which burns so deeply into my soul that it causes an epiphany.

The last half-decade of my life has been pretty much shaped by my addict's pursuit of good VNs. As a result, outside of my work I'm pretty much the picture of the hikikomori erogamer (actually, since I work from home...). At the same time, I've more and more come to realize that almost no one across the water has any real idea of the potential of the medium in general for storytelling, despite having the best of all tools in all areas relatively easily at hand.

If I walk through a section my local bookstore (any fiction section), I can pick out at least a dozen titles I've read and left their mark on my way of thinking and expanded my mind in general. Going through all the VNs I've played, I can name only about forty out of the five hundred that left their mark in a significant way on my mind and spirit... and that is seriously a small number, even proportionately speaking. Less than a tenth of all the VNs I've played have been something worthy of remaining for the future... and how sad is that? This is despite the sheer potential the medium has... When I think of it objectively, I'm sometimes driven to despair.

Personal blog (Sanahtlig's Corner)
VNDB profile
Fuwazette articles
LewdGamer articles
I've been into VNs since around 2002, and active in the community since about 2004. I go by various pseudonyms including sanahtlig, Dark_Shiki, and magusgs. Boards I actively follow include Mangagamer, JAST, Fuwanovel, and VNDB. I was also formerly active at NIS America. I've been actively following VN localization for over 10 years, so I've become familiar with business aspects of the market that often elude other fans.
Over the years I gradually became interested in playing games outside the walled garden of English releases. I enrolled in a year of Japanese courses in 2005 and casually studied the language. I used text hookers to machine translate Japanese VNs, especially RPGs and other gameplay-centric titles. In the past few years I've gradually shifted to using dictionary lookup more often as my knowledge of the language improves and machine translation becomes less attractive as a crutch. Today I remain reliant on text hooking, and I use machine translation as a grammar reference (or when I'm feeling particularly lazy), but my Japanese is good enough that I can often understand written dialogue unaided. With all the tools at my disposal, I'm fairly confident my overall comprehension approaches native level for the games I typically play, even if my reading speed is a bit slower and I don't necessarily understand every word or every phrase.
 
I play VNs voraciously, though I go through spells where I play 30+ hrs a week, and other times where I'll go months without playing any. These days I mostly play Japanese-language VNs, though I try to sprinkle English VNs in (with auto-mode enabled) to give my hands a rest from scrolling over unfamiliar Japanese phrases and repetitive clicking. I keep my VNDB profile mostly up to date. My focus is eroge with gameplay; I consider myself nearly an expert on this genre and I've played games from most of the major developers. I play eroge almost exclusively because, well, I like my animu ero, even if it's just a scene or two tacked on at the end. I usually shy away from nukige, which tend to bore me, but I play a few. To this day I've completely spurned original English VNs for several reasons: the low production values / severe lack of professional quality releases, lack of Japanese voice acting, lack of ero, and a general disdain for Western cultural and artistic values which often creep in (especially into the ero, if any). I might be persuaded to try one eventually if some or all of those concerns are addressed.
 
I like to argue and debate, and my forum post history is filled with posts on all sorts of topics including the VN industry, VN piracy, censorship, legal issues and obscenity, and much more. I also post on Fuwanovel's Fuwazette as well as my own personal blog. My tone is often callous but I typically attempt to argue concepts and ideas, not people. My view is that ideas exist to be challenged, and unchallenged ideas lead to complacence and zombie-think: simply echoing what others tell you. Wherever I see complete acceptance of an idea, I see a viewpoint not being considered. True objectivity means openness to new ideas, an ability to see controversies from multiple perspectives and understand how different premises and viewpoints can lead to different conclusions. I pursue truth, and where truth is elusive I seek to approach it through the sum of all valid viewpoints. Even viewpoints that don't hold up to scrutiny often provide a valid insight into the minds of men.
I write fiction occasionally. My current project is Memory's Wounds.
I am sanahtlig, and this is my story.

This is a response to a comment from Tay (which I suspect has ulterior motives).
 
Eroge, as told through the visual novel medium, fill a void in my life. I'm well past college age, yet I've never touched a girl romantically, much less kissed or dated. You might say I'm starved for romance, yet I have little interest in dating. I could go into detail, but I'm not that interested in discussing my personal life publicly or privately. I'm going through changes in my life that might very well change my outlook, but this is how I've lived my adult life until now.
 
Suffice to say, I find anime-style heroines attractive, and I crave sexual and romantic fulfillment. Nukige don't typically do it for me because I want to be emotionally moved. I need drama. I need context. I need to immerse myself in a fictional world. Non-ero VNs don't do it for me because they lack sexual content, which is a large part of the draw for me, even if it's a small part of the overall package. Before I was into eroge I was into RPGs, fantasy novels, and anime, so story-driven eroge were a natural evolution of my interests.
 
I suspect this isn't the response Tay was looking for. "Join Fuwanovel and enjoy sexual fulfillment!" doesn't make a great tagline, after all. It might also invite unwanted attention from authorities.
 
I'm interested in the eroge industry (eroge account for ~90% of PC VNs originating in Japan), especially the English side, because it's such a fascinating niche. The market dynamics are completely unique. The stigma of porn hamstrings the market, preventing exposure through traditional channels. Cheap low-budget games often turn the most volume and yield the most profit: mediocrity reigns supreme. Most Japanese eroge publishers simply refuse to deal with English licensors, for a variety of business and cultural reasons. The fanbase is small but extremely vocal; it's possible to keep up with all major developments and voices in the community simply by following a few forums. Despite the tiny size of the English market, piracy is rampant and has threatened to completely annihilate the industry at several points. For every eroge customer there's probably 9 "fans" who've never bought an eroge, or who buy only when they can't get what they want for free. The market is so exquisitely fucked up that watching it inspires the sort of morbid fascination of observing a train wreck in progress. And then there's all the *unique* personalities that such a niche invariably draws.
 
Shameless plug: Those interested in seeing the world through my eyes might want to give my novella in progress Memory's Wounds a try.

(An old parody I wrote in 2013, I'm reposting here for general amusement. See the original forum thread for initial reactions.)
 
Announcer:
It’s a beautiful day for baseball today in Eroge Stadium. I’m your host Sanahtlig here to provide commentary for Visual Novel Translation TV. Today the Localizers play against the Fan Translators in a special Western League All-Star game. This should be an interesting matchup. On the Localizers team we have representatives from Mangagamer including the rising star Kouryuu, as well as veterans from JAST USA including the well known Peter Payne. The Fan Translators are a truly diverse bunch of big names playing together for the first time ever. We have Ixrec from Amaterasu, Moogy from TLWiki, Haeleth, and Aaeru from Fuwanovel. It’ll be interesting to see how they interact as a team.
 
The Localizers are up to bat first. But there seems to be a delay. The first batter from Mangagamer appears to have brought a large stick instead of a bat! He seems to be arguing with the umpire. Let’s listen in.
Umpire: You can’t just waltz in here with a stick for a bat. Go borrow a real bat from one of the JAST players!
Mangagamer player: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Umpire: WTF?
 
Announcer:
The Mangagamer player just took off and started running the bases before the game even started! What is he doing??? We’ll be back after a word from our sponsors.
 
[Commercial]
VNDB, a compendium of visual novel knowledge, by you, for you: an oasis where you can request visual novel recommendations, speak freely, and engage in enlightened discussions. Please click our affiliates so we don't go broke!
 
5 min later
 
Announcer:
We’re back, and this time Peter Payne is up to bat with 1 out and 1 expelled player. Here’s the pitch and—it’s a hit! Wait, what is he doing? He’s just standing there! Let’s zoom in for a closer look.
On close examination, Peter is actually shuffling towards 1st base so slow it’s barely perceptible from a distance. He makes it a few feet before being tagged out by the catcher.
That’s two outs folks. Up to bat next is Kouryuu, Mangagamer’s newest darling. Here’s the pitch and—it’s a line drive. This—
At that moment the microphone fades out. The game ensues soundless until a member from Mangagamer finally strikes out, ending the round.
We’re back at Eroge Stadium. We apologize for the technical difficulties. A member from Mangagamer barged in and carried off the microphone, claiming we didn’t have rights to broadcast audio during their lineup. We’re assured now that the problem has been cleared up.
 
The Localizers are taking to the field. Wait, what is this? Mangagamer’s players have taken to the field without clothes! This isn’t baseball, this is pornography! Outrageous! JAST’s entire bench has rushed onto the field to subdue them. They appear to be re-clothing the Mangagamer players—is that 2 bras I see??? We’ll be back after a commercial break.
 
[Commercial]
Mangagamer staff A: Somebody set us up the bomb!
Mangagamer staff B: What you say?!
*Screen flash and booming sound*
Pictured is a box set of 3 games, priced at $150. A tag in the corner of the screen reads “no voice”.
Narrator: Shin Koihime Musou! Otanoshimini!
 
5 min later
 
Announcer:
We’re back and the game looks ready to resume. First up to bat is Haeleth, the oldest member on the team and a true league veteran. He seems to be getting some boos from the audience…hmm? Haeleth just threw down his bat and walked out of the stadium! Amazing! Looks like the Fan Translators are down one member!
Next up to bat is Moogy. Moogy is known for his often uncomplimentary remarks for his fellow players. Moogy steps up to bat and—he seems to be shouting something at the Fan Translator dug out. He’s throwing down his bat and…he just walked out into the field? He seems to have joined the Localizers! What an unexpected development!
Next up is Ixrec. This guy is a monster folks; he has the highest RBI in the entire league. Here’s the pitch, and—it’s a hard hit to right field! Peter Payne scrambles for the ball…what is he doing? Is he riding a wheelchair in the grass? Why is he in a wheelchair?! Ixrec scores! And he’s running around the bases again! Look at him go! One of the umpires from the Japanese league, Age, has grabbed Ixrec and is trying to stop him! Oh my, Ixrec just kicked Age in the balls and is running the bases again! Unbelievable! We’ll be back after a commercial break.
 
[Commercial]
JAST USA is proud to announce the best hentai dating sim ever, Lightning Warrior Raidy 3! Play the role of a cute swordswoman as she fights creepy tentacle monsters and devilish vixens with her new lesbian fusion powers! Coming to a store near you in 2018!
 
10 min later
 
Announcer:
We’re back. Age has left the game, and I doubt we’ll see him back for another Western League game in the near future. We have a Fan Translator on 1st base from a single up the middle.
Next up is Aaeru. A relative newcomer, Aaeru doesn’t seem to be getting along too well with her fellow Fan Translators. But in this game it’s results that count, which I’m sure Aaeru will show us today.
Here comes the pitch…it’s a fast line drive to left field! That’s a base hit! Wait! Aaeru appears to making a beeline for 3rd base! What is she doing?! She’s stopped on 3rd base and doesn’t seem to be budging. It appears that she’s decided to run the bases in reverse order! What are the umpires doing?! The other Fan Translators are snickering, but no one seems to be stopping her. That leaves a player each on 2nd and 3rd base.
Next up to bat is…Moogy? Did he switch sides again?! It’s probably best not to think too hard about this. Here’s the pitch—and it’s a pop up to right field! Peter goes for the ball—and his wheelchair tips over! The Fan Translators are running the bases and—Aaeru just collided with her fellow Fan Translator! Who would've seen that coming?! She’s getting up, and--
 
Mangagamer 3rd baseman: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
 
Announcer:
The Mangagamer 3rd baseman just clubbed her over the head with 3rd base! Ouch! Moogy runs up to her and…he’s kicking her while she’s down! I don’t know who’s the greater bastard: Aaeru, the Mangagamer 3rd baseman, or Moogy! Ixrec runs out of the dugout—he’s running the bases again! Someone catch him! What the hell??? The Mangagamer players are stripping again! Peter is still crawling out in right field towards the ball! This is utter chaos folks! It’s a wacky free-for-all today in Eroge Stadium. I’ve never seen such incredible dysfunction in all my days as an Eroge Stadium broadcaster. Will Moogy stop kicking Aaeru? Will Mangagamer stop turning this into a live porn event? Will Ixrec leave any points for anyone else? Will Peter ever get the damn ball? Stay tuned to Visual Novel Translation TV!
 
In the meantime, let's get some comments from the stadium audience.

Hello everyone! Rose here, bringing you guys another member highlight. Today we'll be talking about someone who has been around for quite a while now but might not have caught your attention yet, even though he deserves it a lot. Zalor has been here for two years now, and while he doesn't have ten thousand posts nor three hundred threads created, he surely made the few ones under his belt count. Most recently, he proposed some interesting discussion topics that were also mentioned in our "Threads you should check out" list, so you might want to check them out.

Now, as the title implies, he has done a few analyses that will be linked below, together with a small commentary about each of those. When it comes to VNs, a lot of people say that we lack some content that other fandoms have in amplitude, such as fanfictions, fanarts, well-though theories and articles in general, and that much is pretty much true. For that reason, people like Zalor are amazingly valuable to our community and his work deserves a lot of recognition, not only for being a content that we lack, but also for their admirably high quality. Unfortunately, as I haven't read Narcissu nor Kanon, I couldn't write something about those analyses but I reached out for people who did but had never read his works, so reading their thoughts was even better for me, and surely it'll also be like that for Zalor.



"The greatest tribute you could pay an artist is to seriously think about their work"



-
Zalor
Perspective in Saya no Uta (Link)

"A fantastic analysis! From the well-crafted introduction to the relatively comical last line, Zalor delivers some nice thoughts about what could very well be one of the most complex and deep translated VN to date. Not only pointing the protagonist, he also shares insights about the perspectives of all the main cast on the many possible ways to see and understand the world built in the novel. I'd also like to give a quick shout-out to Plénitude, who made interesting observations and rethought Zalor's interpretations, adding a lot to the discussion." -Rose

Kanon: Mai and Sayuri Analysis (Link)

"It was a really good read, well thought out, good amount of detailed analysis without nitpicking or over analyzing, he drew parallels well and I personally liked the fact that while Mai is more focused in that route you agree with my assessment that Sayuri is by far the more tragic of the two heroines." -krill

Narcissu and Death (Link)

"Wonderful analysis of Narcissu. Just as the tale of Narcissu is a somber one, the analysis follows suit going into detail through the various interactions between the main character and Setsumi. A specific standout point would be the relation drawn between sensuality and death, which was particularly well thought-out. And finally, with a reference to the literary genius, Joesph Cambell, and a well structured conclusion, I found that our opinions agreed greatly. Narcissu truly is, as Zalor said, an 'uncensored portrayal of the complete hopelessness and isolation in facing death'." -LinovaA






With this, I'm ending this recognition post. I hope you guys enjoyed it and that our brief comments were enough to get you guys interested in his works. Zalor brings a lot to our community and I hope to have the pleasure to read more of his analyses in the future. Keep up the amazing work, soldier. Your efforts are definitely appreciated!

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

For those that don’t know, the other day some villains ambushed me and they gave me a task – to produce a writing critique of Sakura Spirit. This, they say, will entertain the masses and provide much mirth for those on Fuwa. It is a task I went into full of hubris.

But first some background. Sakura Spirit is an English developed Visual Novel with extroadinarily pretty art, and yet it suffers from a horrible reputation. A reputation even more repulsive than those terribly translated, doujin, nukige abominations Mangagamer spews forth. The mere mention of this title produces hisses and insults from nearby people, reactions you’d usually only hear if you gatecrashed a teenagers party. Dressed in only a bathrobe and slippers. Shouting that it was past your child’s bed-time, you were here to collect them, and had anybody seen them?

There’s very few people or institutions that could release something so aesthetically beautiful only to produce such disgust in the public, and my money’s on the Government.

And so I went into this challenge supremely confident, reassured by the knowledge that the Government has never done anything right. I would be gifted a game that was completely horrid, and I would need to apply only a minisule amount of brainpower to produce a detailed critique. How misplaced a feeling this was!

But onto specifics, why the uproar over such a beautiful looking game? Well, there’s 4 reasons: there’s no plot, it’s a game about sex but there is none, it’s an English developed visual novel with Japanese words and phrases sprinkled everywhere, and the writing is horrid. So the only positives to the game are the pretty art, and the fanservice.

But surely gamers are a smart species, they wouldn't fork over good money just because of some large, oil-smeared boobs, am I right? That would be like watching NASCAR for the crashes, or watching a foreign film to laugh at the funny mistranslations in the subtitles.

But I was wrong. Over 100,000 people own Sakura Spirit, and that’s more than the entire voting population of Aruba. And most of them appear to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves, if the review system on Steam can be taken at face value.

Which it can’t.

But here’s the thing, if a small indie studio can sell over a hundred thousand copies just by including some nice art, and sprites with reflecting boobs, then there’s no incentive to provide a decent story or good writing. Writing takes time, and good writing even more so, and if there's little monetary reward to head down that path then people won’t.

But unlike Winged Cloud, Sekai Project is a production studio and DO have a professional reputation to maintain. In response to the uproar they made some apologetic sounds and issued some vague promises on Reddit. They said they asked Winged Cloud to “improve the grammar and writing” and have since “changed their QA procedure”. But despite their revamped QA procedure the situation repeated itself with Nekopara, another awfully pretty game that was obviously translated by the Government. This didn’t bode well for their first promise.

So over the next few weeks (Fuwa time) I will analyse the game’s writing to find out how much it has improved, and what writing issues are still included in the script. Obviously they wouldn't have been able to shoe-horn in a plot, or much additional character development, but what have they improved and how bad is the writing in its current form? Is Sakura Spirit finally worth purchasing or is it still nothing more than a glorified erotic CG gallery… with no actual porn?

That’s what we’ll find out.