Zalor

Haha, I was actually about to edit my post to mention some of the stuff you did. I think YU-NO is a great TL;DR answer for the first most influential story based VN. But of course the story isn't that simple. In my opinion I think a lot of influence could be traced to one specific individual, Kanno Hiroyuki. Who was the primary writer for Eve: Bust Error, DESIRE, Xenon ~Mugen no Shitai~, and of course YU-NO. All of these mentioned VNs are classics imo. 
I also want to give Umemoto Ryu an honorable mention because he often collaborated with Kanno Hiroyuki, and his compositions often captured the tone of Kanno's writing excellently. I think he worked on the compositions for all those VNs I mentioned above, so the two were a great combination. 

What about earlier C's Ware's attempts like Eve: Burst Error or DESIRE - Haitoku no Rasen (written by YU-NO's writer nonetheless)? Or ~1995-96 JAST titles (San Shimai & Meisou Toshi)? Mugen Yasoukyoku? Well, I guess neither of those had the impact and scale of the YU-NO (and JAST titles had much more dating sim elements), so there's some merit in highlighting it.

I've been researching PC-98 visual novels quite a bit lately. And simply put, while you could argue on details, I would say Yu-No is an excellent starting place for what defines the modern story-based VN. 

Its steadily getting more mainstream, but as is often when a niche medium/genre steadily gains more mainstream attention, it isn't necessarily a good thing if you are an old school fan. I first got into VNs around 2010/2011, they were extremely niche back then. Not as niche as say the early - mid 00s, but thanks to the Visual Novel fan-translation scene that took off around the mid-2000's they were steadily gaining more attention. Likely in part because anime was also becoming more mainstream. And It was the fan-transaltion of Kanon (which I was interested in because of the 2006 Kanon anime) that actually first exposed me to this medium. The correlation between a rise in the amount of fan-translations and rise in VN popularity in the west (even if still very moderate), is likely why Aaeru started Fuwanovel. She was the one who coined the Fuwanovel motto "Making VNs popular in the west", and among her biggest goals was to increase fan-translation output. Ultimately she fought a losing battle, because as VNs were starting to get more attention, companies and localizers started to pay more attention to them as well. So ironically the fan-translators who arguably helped grow this incredibly niche medium, were now getting cease and desist threats because companies wanted to take advantage of this potential market. Infact this very thing happened to Aaeru herself 


Not saying mangagamer or JastUSA are the badguys at all, I respect them a lot for being the OG localizers in the industry. When shit really hit the fan imo, is when Steam became a popular avenue to sell/market VNs. It was in this phase that VN's once again hit a bump in relative popularity, but this new audience by in large has very different taste then what original VN fans care for. Dies Irae and Suba Hibi for example, are two VNs very much beloved by older school VN fans but did pretty poorly when compared to DDLC. DDLC was a perfect market exploit of the new demographic of potential VN purchasers on Steam. Now I know DDLC is a free game, but its massive outburst in popularity proved one thing. It proved that VN's can reach mainstream popularity, but to do so would require betraying old school VN fans (at least in my opinion). 

The same thing happened to jrpgs.  As they became more mainstream, quality in general began a drastic flaw as efforts were made to appeal to casual and mainstream users.  This led to the mistakes that eventually crippled the genre, such as reverse-including elements from MMO games into normal jrpgs and abortive attempts to 'upgrade' series that were mostly geared to old fans (Suikoden Tierkreis, Growlanser V, etc) that ended up killing the series outright in the long run.  A lot of hardcore fans of jrpgs eventually just quit playing them or resorted to playing roguelikes and low-quality imitations instead.  The relatively low number of high quality jrpgs made since then (there are a ton of mediocre copies of the few hits, such as the dozens of copies of the latter-era Persona games) says everything about what appealing to the mainstream can do to a genre.  
Some particular examples were the disappearance of quality music direction, the overuse of VAs to compensate for poor writing, and the increased tendency to ignore the story-driven gameplay that was the center of the jrpg golden age.  Very few jrpgs actually tell an interesting story anymore, to the point where when one does (like the Legend of Heroes series or Tales of Berseria) it gets worshiped outright by the newer generation, who haven't experienced anything like it before unless they were already retro gamers.

Originally I was working on a version where I dubbed the dialogue boxes with random Japanese from Suba Hibi. I got like 20% through doing that but ultimately abandoned that idea because I thought it would have distracted from the movie too much. Also it was a hassle. 16:00 is from the Visual Novel For Elise ～エリーゼのために～. Like 90% of the OST of that VN are rearrangements of Beethoven's Fur Elise. This is the specific track I used:

That's freaking hilarious. I can't believe you've done this
Dr. Caligari is awesome. Cesare is so cool.
I admit that the first time I watched the film I didn't get the ending, but now I know better.
I like the music at 16:00. Interesting version.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is as close as films get to denpa. And it actually has several significant similarities with one of my favorite denpa VNs, Sayonara wo Oshiete. Since its a silent film in public domain, I decided to upload a version that exclusively uses music from VNs. Weird as a concept it maybe, I think it turned out decently well. But maybe I'm just the weird one lol.
Anyway, here's the link:
 
 
If anyone is interested in watching this, let me know how many tracks you recognize. I'm be curious to know. 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is as close as films get to denpa. And it actually has several significant similarities with one of my favorite denpa VNs, Sayonara wo Oshiete. Since its a silent film in public domain, I decided to upload a version that exclusively uses music from VNs. Weird as a concept it maybe, I think it turned out decently well. But maybe I'm just the weird one lol.
Anyway, here's the link:
 
 
If anyone is interested in watching this, let me know how many tracks you recognize. I'm be curious to know. 

Reddit is just another Facebook.  I tried it once and once was enough for me to delete my account.  Discord... doesn't encourage community at all.  It just encourages non-informative random conversation (just like all chat apps).

These days my average is 0 minutes a day. But around once a year when I get the bug to play a VN again (and manage to find one that genuinely engages me) I will spend all my free time and likely procrastinate irl obligations to read it. This most recently happened to me with Dies Irae this past winter.

Just saw this announcement trailer for Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York and it looks pretty interesting.
Apparently it'll be a VN/RPG hybrid which will also have some additional game play mechanics like quests, hunger, feeding, disciplines and time progress. It's definitely it's own thing and not your typical OELVN that tries to emulate Japanese anime tropes, and I'm rather curious how this will work out. Will it get more attention from people who aren't into anime art or just miss the mark? I'm also a bit worried if they go too far with the game mechanics and hurt the narrative with it.
Regarding the trailer itself, the backgrounds and atmosphere are great but the characters look a bit wishy-washy to be honest and they don't seem to have different expressions.
But I'll definitely keep an eye on that title since I'm a big vampire fan and of White Wolf in particular (Bloodlines is one of my all-time favorite RPG's).

Similar to chrono here. Wondered how and when it would be that I stopped reading vns. I haven't really do that yet. But after 8 years or so now. I can't really get into it anymore. At the very least, before I also think my goal of reading vns was a goal in itself. Because just reading vns just felt that good and enjoyable. Now. Its fun. But I can't get into it.
Haven't really turned away from otaku culture though. Reading like 50+ vols of Light Novel's each year. Just having text honestly feels more comfortable than the game-computer elements, which I find in the way. I find that hilarious tbh. Because I remember I found books the reverse when I started with vns.
Knowing myself though. I will prbly come back to vns again when I am bored of LN's. No idea when I'll totally stop though, 10 more years? haha.

Sounds like you might be reading VNs more than before if you are doing it for work. ;p It makes sense you wouldn't want to do something during your free time as much if its your job.

Synergia demo is now out, be sure to check it out!:
>>STEAM DEMO<<
>>ITCH.IO DEMO<<
Oh and now we have a website too: 
https://synergia-game.com
 

Synergia Kickstarter is now live! With stretch goals to fund PS4/Switch ports, extra content and VA! You can support it here: 
 

Meetup works best in big cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. There are many Meetup events, but in my experience it is the more low key ones that tend to be most fun and interesting (for unrelated reasons I was personal friends with a host for a smaller Meetup event and those were the most fun for me). Most of the bigger, more well known or established Meetup events are honestly just an excuse for foreigners interested in hooking up with Japanese, and Japanese interested in hooking up with foreigners to meet. In fact, I would say a good 70% of Meetup events at their very core are really just an excuse to try to meet someone for a sexual or romantic relationship. Which depending on your perspective could be great or not. 
Basically Meetup in Japan is like the irl version of the app HelloTalk. There is a pretense of "language exchange", but its really used for flirting. So if you want to meet a cute Japanese girl or guy, definitely try Meetup and HelloTalk. If you want to meet people who could become actual friends, then I would recommend attending Meetup events that do events that are most specific and hobby focused, and not just "language exchange".  
Its more that women on Tinder will say that as a precaution in case if they aren't actually attracted to the guy they meet up with on the first date. This way she can reject him more gently/indirectly by saying "No, I'm just looking for friends". Which if you think about Japanese culture, it makes a lot of sense why they would prefer to do that. But if she is attracted, well lets just say she won't have any problem accepting advances for something more sensual/romantic. 
 

Meetup works best in big cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. There are many Meetup events, but in my experience it is the more low key ones that tend to be most fun and interesting (for unrelated reasons I was personal friends with a host for a smaller Meetup event and those were the most fun for me). Most of the bigger, more well known or established Meetup events are honestly just an excuse for foreigners interested in hooking up with Japanese, and Japanese interested in hooking up with foreigners to meet. In fact, I would say a good 70% of Meetup events at their very core are really just an excuse to try to meet someone for a sexual or romantic relationship. Which depending on your perspective could be great or not. 
Basically Meetup in Japan is like the irl version of the app HelloTalk. There is a pretense of "language exchange", but its really used for flirting. So if you want to meet a cute Japanese girl or guy, definitely try Meetup and HelloTalk. If you want to meet people who could become actual friends, then I would recommend attending Meetup events that do events that are most specific and hobby focused, and not just "language exchange".  
Its more that women on Tinder will say that as a precaution in case if they aren't actually attracted to the guy they meet up with on the first date. This way she can reject him more gently/indirectly by saying "No, I'm just looking for friends". Which if you think about Japanese culture, it makes a lot of sense why they would prefer to do that. But if she is attracted, well lets just say she won't have any problem accepting advances for something more sensual/romantic. 
 

I wonder, it's hard to get reliable data at this point, with Steam Spy being dead, but I was under the impression that Dies Irae did better than Little Busters. Are sales on the level of 5-6k copies on Steam enough to justify a translation project of this scale? I guess barely, but it's not like most of these project were just attempted in a "traditional" way, just being dumped on the market with the hope they sell decently enough. They were Kickstarted, guaranteeing at minimum a return on investment (if the campaigns are handled competently). It's hard to say those companies made a huge gamble, considering they already dumped most of the investment risk on the fans (Key being a major exception I guess) and did dogshit to promote their games.
Although, maybe nothing less than the Western market being a goldmine would motivate some of them to expand. I can't say I ever got anywhere close to understanding the logic behind how some of these companies operate. For every 9tail and Key we seem to find 20 that see the West as the land of fire-breathing dragons, and only like 20% of it seems to be connected to loli and rape porn.
I would love to see someone try to quantify that (ex. by the influx of people into r/visualnovels or VN groups and curator accounts on Steam). I've noticed that the problem is at least a double-edged one - that is, people trying to get into the VN fandom after being intrigued by DDLC were treated like lepers by the community and the burning hatred for the game is just as alive in the more obnoxious parts of it to this day. Can't say I'd be encouraged by it if DDLC was my point of entry. Even more, as someone who was introduced to the niche by an EVN, it was mostly my peculiar state of mind at the time (I was unreasonably motivated to explore the niche and write about it) that made me not run for the hills after seeing how most people treat those non-JP games. Katawa Shoujo, on the other hand, was such a crystallized piece of JP VN appreciation that I've seen some people being weirded out by the realization that it's "technically an EVN". In the end, I find it quite predictable that games which rely on community marketing alone, with a community that is too good to even fraternize with the lesser breeds of weeb, won't get very far. :>

I'm glad to hear that! I hope you enjoy it
Commercial success of English versions are important so that Japanese VN studios will want to continue collaborating with English localizing teams/companies. In the OP it shows a screen cap of a twitter post by Sca-ji (the creator of Suba Hibi) lamenting the unpopulartiy of Suba Hibi in the west, and he also mentions that さや教, which is short for Sayonara wo Oshiete would likely also do just as, if not more poorly. Thus implying that it wouldn't be worth localizing it. Sayonara is also among my favorite VN titles, and to much disappointment the fan translation team seemed to have dropped it. So it doesn't look like it will ever makes its way into English, not in the foreseeable future at least.
A few years back, it was absolutely shocking to see big name VNs such as Suba Hibi, Dies Irae, Little Busters, etc getting endorsed English translations. Japanese companies are super conservative and this was a big gamble for them. The fact that the results were so disappointing will strongly discourage them from being so generous or adventurous in the future. So as you can see, the relative flop of Suba Hibi doesn't just effect itself, but the likelihood of getting other quality JPN only VNs from getting official English releases.    
I don't have the data, but I don't think Dies Irae did that well either. This mission of localizing several kamige resulted in a huge failure, and that makes it unlikely that we will see more quality Japanese VNs getting localized. 
A lot of work went into all of these kamige, a lot of negotiating happened to get the opportunity for an English localization, and then a lot of effort also went into translating and creating an English version. To then see DDLC (which Im sure lots of hard work went into it, but comparatively not as much) succeed so much more is frustrating. But whats most frustrating, is that DDLC made a huge hit, but there was little trickle down (from my observation at least). Meaning, DDLC's success doesn't seem to have created a significant amount of new VN fans. This is quite contrary to Katawa Shoujo, which actually brought in a lot of westerners into this niche medium.  
As somebody who has been on and off active in the VN community for almost 6 years, I see DDLC as a project done by a complete outsider who only subverted the stereotypes of VNs and who made little homage (aside from mockery and subversion) of VNs. While Katawa Shoujo was a sort of love song to VNs, DDLC feels like an outsider making fun of this niche. Granted, it did do some very interesting things. But I think it had a minimal net positive impact in expanding the market for Japanese VNs, if not had a slightly negative influence. 

First of all I do think that the attention span of public consciousness is pretty low. Just look at how fast people forget the scandals of politicians for instance. Its surely not limited to VN fans, but just a general truth. In that sense, I think my point has some validity. However, I will not disagree that I am perhaps a bit too optimistic about the could-have-been scenario of a delayed release of DDLC, and how that scenario could have effected Suba Hibi. It is quite possible that it wouldn't have gathered much more attention regardless of an absence of competition with DDLC. 
There was a lot of hope riding on Suba Hibi being the VN to convince a broader mass of people that VNs are much more than their stereotype. Certainly I held this hope, and I think many other fans of Suba Hibi who read it in Japanese prior to the Eng-release had similar hopes. Back when my Japanese wasn't as advance, I spent a good 6-months reading Suba Hibi when I had free time. I spent a long time with it. At the end of the journey after many twists and turns, it was overwhelming how satisfying the experience was. A lot of criticisms that people give Suba Hibi were thoughts I had my self (I almost dropped the VN twice), and yet despite these flaws, by the end of the journey the story came together perfectly. Every single problem I had with the VN at one point or another, were actually all there for a much grander purpose. I even wrote a whole article/blog post defending the first chapter of Suba Hibi for the incoming English readers that were soon to arrive. Part of that article was simply to organize my own thoughts, but there was also the motivation to convince people that the seemingly irrelevant first chapter does have a purpose to it. That the first impression the first chapter offers is extremely deceptive. I desperately wanted to see this VN succeed in the west. And the fact that DDLC's release date did potentially steal attention as well as the fact that I don't think its nearly as good of a VN, is expressed in my resentment towards it. 
But yes, attachments such as mine aren't exactly rational. And thank God for that, as there is no beauty in cold rationality. The natural response to profound beauty is irrational love. And like how a mother will defend her flawed children and desperately hope to see them succeed, I have similar sentiments about Suba Hibi. 
  

The way you put your words made me want to read Suba Hibi, gonna start right away, thanks.

First of all I do think that the attention span of public consciousness is pretty low. Just look at how fast people forget the scandals of politicians for instance. Its surely not limited to VN fans, but just a general truth. In that sense, I think my point has some validity. However, I will not disagree that I am perhaps a bit too optimistic about the could-have-been scenario of a delayed release of DDLC, and how that scenario could have effected Suba Hibi. It is quite possible that it wouldn't have gathered much more attention regardless of an absence of competition with DDLC. 
There was a lot of hope riding on Suba Hibi being the VN to convince a broader mass of people that VNs are much more than their stereotype. Certainly I held this hope, and I think many other fans of Suba Hibi who read it in Japanese prior to the Eng-release had similar hopes. Back when my Japanese wasn't as advance, I spent a good 6-months reading Suba Hibi when I had free time. I spent a long time with it. At the end of the journey after many twists and turns, it was overwhelming how satisfying the experience was. A lot of criticisms that people give Suba Hibi were thoughts I had my self (I almost dropped the VN twice), and yet despite these flaws, by the end of the journey the story came together perfectly. Every single problem I had with the VN at one point or another, were actually all there for a much grander purpose. I even wrote a whole article/blog post defending the first chapter of Suba Hibi for the incoming English readers that were soon to arrive. Part of that article was simply to organize my own thoughts, but there was also the motivation to convince people that the seemingly irrelevant first chapter does have a purpose to it. That the first impression the first chapter offers is extremely deceptive. I desperately wanted to see this VN succeed in the west. And the fact that DDLC's release date did potentially steal attention as well as the fact that I don't think its nearly as good of a VN, is expressed in my resentment towards it. 
But yes, attachments such as mine aren't exactly rational. And thank God for that, as there is no beauty in cold rationality. The natural response to profound beauty is irrational love. And like how a mother will defend her flawed children and desperately hope to see them succeed, I have similar sentiments about Suba Hibi. 
  

First of all I do think that the attention span of public consciousness is pretty low. Just look at how fast people forget the scandals of politicians for instance. Its surely not limited to VN fans, but just a general truth. In that sense, I think my point has some validity. However, I will not disagree that I am perhaps a bit too optimistic about the could-have-been scenario of a delayed release of DDLC, and how that scenario could have effected Suba Hibi. It is quite possible that it wouldn't have gathered much more attention regardless of an absence of competition with DDLC. 
There was a lot of hope riding on Suba Hibi being the VN to convince a broader mass of people that VNs are much more than their stereotype. Certainly I held this hope, and I think many other fans of Suba Hibi who read it in Japanese prior to the Eng-release had similar hopes. Back when my Japanese wasn't as advance, I spent a good 6-months reading Suba Hibi when I had free time. I spent a long time with it. At the end of the journey after many twists and turns, it was overwhelming how satisfying the experience was. A lot of criticisms that people give Suba Hibi were thoughts I had my self (I almost dropped the VN twice), and yet despite these flaws, by the end of the journey the story came together perfectly. Every single problem I had with the VN at one point or another, were actually all there for a much grander purpose. I even wrote a whole article/blog post defending the first chapter of Suba Hibi for the incoming English readers that were soon to arrive. Part of that article was simply to organize my own thoughts, but there was also the motivation to convince people that the seemingly irrelevant first chapter does have a purpose to it. That the first impression the first chapter offers is extremely deceptive. I desperately wanted to see this VN succeed in the west. And the fact that DDLC's release date did potentially steal attention as well as the fact that I don't think its nearly as good of a VN, is expressed in my resentment towards it. 
But yes, attachments such as mine aren't exactly rational. And thank God for that, as there is no beauty in cold rationality. The natural response to profound beauty is irrational love. And like how a mother will defend her flawed children and desperately hope to see them succeed, I have similar sentiments about Suba Hibi. 
  

I'm going to necro this thread and this post since I've been reminiscing about Suba Hibi recently, and your comment address exactly what I want to talk about.
It was very very unfortunate that DDLC was released only a month after Suba Hibi. It completely drowned out much of the attention that Suba Hibi should have received. DDLC was nothing more than a gimmick, and that made it easy to hog the spot light. A month is about the time it would have taken for enough people to have read Suba Hibi and for English speaking fans to promote it through discussions, fan-art, blogs, reviews, etc. Instead, the moment that the second wave of would-be fans could have come, they were instantly distracted by the piece of trash DDLC that everyone has already forgotten about. God, have I mentioned how much I hate DDLC for simply existing, it is nearly proportional to the amount that I Love Suba Hibi.
Suba Hibi is one of those few stories (in any medium), where if you give it a chance and read through the giant, it will leave a permanently good impression on you. Not just that, but it imparts with you a positive and hopeful outlook on life. I've had several deep conversations with people about how Suba Hibi helped them through depression. Its just that powerful of a work.