Corona Blossom released!

[Clephas]

That it is only a part one makes me not want to play it, to be honest... I'd rather wait until it is all out and buy a package deal, lol.

[Dark_blade64]

Alright I download the demo and it seems english translation is decent? Now for animation they're using Live2D and for the most part it looks great, but the eyes placement during some expression looks odd. From what I'm getting of the plot and characters, the story looks kind of over the top with some space pirates and robots added into the mix. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a cuteness fest, I would like it to focus more in the story as it sound like it has some potential.

[sanahtlig]

3 hours ago, Dark_blade64 said:

Hopefully it doesn't turn into a cuteness fest, I would like it to focus more in the story as it sound like it has some potential.

Well, they ARE going for the Nekopara and Sakura series demographics with this.

[VirginSmasher]

This one looks like a VN with a story that I won't care about. I'll be skipping this one.

[DharmaFreedom]

Anybody read it yet? thoughts?

[Fred the Barber]

I just finished it. Couple of informational notes:

• It's pretty short. I finished it in I think five sessions, and I generally don't have the attention span for more than about an hour at a time of anything. Also, I listened to the voice acting most of the time and have a tendency to read slowly.
• It ends on a big cliffhanger.
• There are no H scenes when you're actually playing the story, but I think all the H content is accessible from the main menu from the moment you install the patch.
• Some of the poster characters barely get any screen-time. The game mostly focuses on R-ne, Shino, Kumiko, and Keiji. I assume we'll see more of Lily, Yukie, and Kanade in the later volumes.

 

More judgmental / opinionated things:

• It's super cute.
• The Emote stuff mostly looks pretty cute, too, although the set of animations it uses when walking towards the camera always looks weird to me. Other than that, big thumbs-up. They have a really broad set of animations (eye positions, especially) which they really put to good use to communicate emotion effectively. I really noticed that with Kumiko, especially, but that might just be me being fascinated with Kumiko...
• I found the setting and setup more interesting than a run-of-the-mill moege (as a baseline for what I mean by "run-of-the-mill moege", maybe consider Princess Evangile). Also, despite having a fairly unique setup, it doesn't burn a lot of time on infodumps, instead sliding stuff in pretty quietly while focusing on slice-of-life scenes for both characterization and character development (the latter happening mostly just for R-ne). This is not to say it's amazing or anything - just that it's better than average.
• Kanade and Kumiko are still duking it out for best girl in my mind. I'm betting on Kanade in the long run, but she really didn't get much time on the stage in this game, which was disappointing.
• The translation is frankly pretty bad. It's extremely literal, to the point of having very unnatural phrasing, with lots of wasei eigo just carried over word for word which often comes out as near-gibberish. Though it did seem like they were getting better at that particular problem as the script progressed. That said, the script has been been pretty well copy-edited and proofread, so most people probably won't notice or mind the issues... One point in favor of the translation: the translator did a decent job of making character voices unique and (fairly) consistent. I think they definitely went too far with infantilizing R-ne's speech, especially since she's supposed to mature a fair bit over the course of the game, and it would've been better if her speech had reflected that, but otherwise I saw and appreciated the differences in how each of the characters talked. So, kudos on that.

[ShinRaikdou]

On 7/31/2016 at 5:01 AM, Fred the Barber said:

There are no H scenes when you're actually playing the story, but I think all the H content is accessible from the main menu from the moment you install the patch.

What does that mean ? H scenes is just alternate universe / faping doujinshi, that do not affect story ?

[Fred the Barber]

Just now, ShinRaikdou said:

What does that mean ? H scenes is just alternate universe / faping doujinshi, that do not affect story ?

It's unclear to me whether none, some, or all of them are intended to be canon. The one I played (and it looks like they all were like this, judging by the description of the ones I didn't play) could reasonably have been inserted in the timeline of the game, so it's actually kind of strange to me that they didn't do so.

I only played one of them (Shino's), and purely from a character relationship perspective, it was actually an interesting experience. If I do accept it as canon to the game universe, it dramatically changes my perspective on the relationship between Keiji and Shino, and even helps me appreciate them a little more. It's mostly just porn, of course; I'm not going to claim that it adds huge depth to the game. But it does add some, which is why I find it odd that it wasn't part of the gameplay.

[Dergonu]

I haven't gotten too far, but H-scenes aside, adult content in general does occur in the story, and quite early on even. (The bath scene for instance.) Should probably have clarified that. The patch has more than just those 3 H-scenes.

Also, I have to admit, your comment on the translation is overly harsh. I don't agree with it. Granted, I haven't played too much yet, but if your comment saying it gets better the further into the story you get is true, then I think it is indeed of an overexaggeration. The translation itself seems good to be honest, and I only noticed a single case of overly direct translations so far, which was one case of "it can't be helped."

[Mr Poltroon]

1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

I haven't gotten too far, but H-scenes aside, adult content in general does occur in the story, and quite early on even. (The bath scene for instance.) Should probably have clarified that. The patch has more than just those 3 H-scenes.

Also, I have to admit, your comment on the translation is overly harsh. I don't agree with it. Granted, I haven't played too much yet, but if your comment saying it gets better the further into the story you get is true, then I think it is indeed of an overexaggeration. The translation itself seems good to be honest, and I only noticed a single case of overly direct translations so far, which was one case of "it can't be helped."

Allow me to offer some conjecture on the matter.

It's a difference in standards. Fred is now an editor on the VN scene and, from what little I've seen, a fairly liberal one. This basically means he's an enemy of 90% of existing translations and has set out on an unfortunate path of suffering for himself, the path of expecting good prose from Visual Novels.

I myself am on a similar, if happier, path. As a proofreader, typos come naturally to me and I can't help but be more annoyed by them than your average Joe and Joette. As I tend to play very, very long Visual Novels, typos are to be expected, yet my tolerance is low. Additionally, I feel compelled to note that sentences missing a full stop are the worst offenders.

[Okarin]

On 28/7/2016 at 6:39 AM, wyldstrykr said:

also why there is a steam achievements in a kinetic visual novel?

They are awarded for reading on. There's a lot of people that buys the games (and the VNs) and leave them to rot, not even playing them. Achievements at least encourage them to play.

The SonoHana game on Steam did have achievements. And it's a short kinetic novel.

[Fred the Barber]

6 hours ago, Dergonu said:

I haven't gotten too far, but H-scenes aside, adult content in general does occur in the story, and quite early on even. (The bath scene for instance.) Should probably have clarified that. The patch has more than just those 3 H-scenes.

Forgot about the bath CG, my bad. I honestly don't remember if there's anything else like that (I don't think so, but I could be wrong).

6 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Also, I have to admit, your comment on the translation is overly harsh.

 

5 hours ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Fred is ... expecting good prose from Visual Novels.

No, don't misunderstand. It's not that I want them to write solid prose. I just want a translation, not a copy-edited Google Translate transcript. Here's four screenshots I saved of bad translation. I have several more, taken before I gave up on collecting them. If I wanted to read it and screenshot style nits, I could undoubtedly find dozens; prose isn't the problem here. Bad translation is.

Spoiler

There are two really obvious problems with this one line: 1) it preserves the JP tendency to state things as a direct quotation which aren't actually a quotation and should instead be delivered as a description, and 2) it uses the phrase "read the mood", an insufficiently-translated phrase that should be killed with fire and replaced with something meaningful to an English speaker every time it occurs.

 

"Yoohoo" is parroting the Japanese word, rather than attempting to translate the greeting.

 

"Move your body" is another one from my shitlist of insufficiently-translated Japanese. It's basically nonsense in English, and has a really simple, natural translation: "exercise". For the love of all that is holy, please learn the word exercise and use it when translating that phrase. Or find a more colorful way or more situationally appropriate way to say it, whatever. Just don't say "move your body" in this context - it makes it sound like someone's manipulating a marionette.

 

Now there's an analogy I can relate to.

 

[Mr Poltroon]

2 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

Forgot about the bath CG, my bad. I honestly don't remember if there's anything else like that (I don't think so, but I could be wrong).

 

No, don't misunderstand. It's not that I want them to write solid prose. I just want a translation, not a copy-edited Google Translate transcript. Here's four screenshots I saved of bad translation. I have several more, taken before I gave up on collecting them. If I wanted to read it and screenshot style nits, I could undoubtedly find dozens; prose isn't the problem here. Bad translation is.

  Hide contents

There are two really obvious problems with this one line: 1) it preserves the JP tendency to state things as a direct quotation which aren't actually a quotation and should instead be delivered as a description, and 2) using the phrase "read the mood", an insufficiently-translated phrase that should be killed with fire and replaced with something meaningful to an English speaker every time it occurs.

 

"Yoohoo" is parroting the Japanese word, rather than attempting to translate the greeting.

 

"move your body" is another one from my shitlist of insufficiently-translated Japanese. It's basically nonsense in English, and has a really simple, natural translation: "exercise". For the love of all that is holy, please learn the word exercise and use it when translating that phrase. Or find a more colorful way or more situationally appropriate way to say it, whatever. Just don't say "move your body" in this context - it makes it sound like someone's manipulating a marionette.

 

Now there's an analogy I can relate to.

 

DISCLAIMER: I've rewritten this about 6 times and I still haven't managed to convey my thoughts as intended. As such, I'll give up and just post the latest draft up and go cry.

 

I see, I see. First, I'll clarify that I was exaggerating when it came to "expecting good prose", but I was entirely serious in that becoming an editor gives you a new perspective that will have you bashing a translation where many other Visual Novel readers would not.

Then I'll have to ask. What do you mean by "the translation is bad"? Does it mean the translator wasn't very good? Or does it mean the overall work of the translator+editor+quality checker+whoever else worked on it was bad?
Because the translator did his job. He interpreted the Japanese sentences and chose the equivalent English words that would make for a coherent sentence. Because Japanese=/=English, this often means that the word choice will be unusual, or that the onomatopoeia and the analogies carry the wrong meaning to an English speaker.
To choose to alter the sentences to convey this lost meaning is an editing philosophy and would fall on the editor, not on the translator. Therefore, saying "the translation is bad" can be misunderstood. A bad translation is one where the interpretation of the translator leads to an incoherent English sentence, with no (sensible) meaning whatsoever. "the boots lick the socks"

Google Translate can't interpret, only translate, and translate it does. It picks a Japanese word or group of words, attributes one possible meaning it could have, and looks for an English equivalent, then moves on to the next one. A proper translator makes sure the meaning, and therefore English equivalent, remains coherent with the rest of the sentence.
"move my body" makes sense. It means exactly what's written. That English people would never in their dreams use this expression (in the given context) is irrelevant, because Japanese people would.
"read the mood" makes sense. If you check the dictionary, one of the meanings of read is to "interpret", and one of the meanings of "mood" is atmosphere/tone. It means exactly what's written, regardless of whether English people would ever word it that way or not.
The analogy also makes sense, and yet it doesn't. The words carry their meaning through, but the meaning doesn't convey anything specific to an English speaker, as an English speaker doesn't find anything characteristic in an old man eating a dried squid. The vast majority hasn't even seen such a sight.

Clearly, it's easier for a non-native to read this sort of thing. They rely on the meanings of the words, and care about little else. Me too. So I understand that you might find the Editing department rather lacklustre, and about that, I won't stop you from complaining. What would worry me is if you expected the translator to simultaneously be an editor and be expected to know how to best convey the meaning instead of merely translating the sentences.

I'll conclude by saying that from my point of view, a literal translation is only bad if it outputs incoherent sentences as a result of using the wrong English equivalents.
Of course, in an ideal environment the literal translation would then be edited so as to best relay the meaning the sentences are meant to convey, and this would be the joint effort of the translator and editor.

 

To surmise, I have no issue with the overall translation, although I see why you might, especially being an editor, but I think you shouldn't be criticising the translator, but the editor.

[Decay]

3 hours ago, Tiagofvarela said:

Because the translator did his job. He interpreted the Japanese sentences and chose the equivalent English words that would make for a coherent sentence. Because Japanese=/=English, this often means that the word choice will be unusual, or that the onomatopoeia and the analogies carry the wrong meaning to an English speaker.
To choose to alter the sentences to convey this lost meaning is an editing philosophy and would fall on the editor, not on the translator. Therefore, saying "the translation is bad" can be misunderstood. A bad translation is one where the interpretation of the translator leads to an incoherent English sentence, with no (sensible) meaning whatsoever. "the boots lick the socks"

Noooo, nonono. I'm sorry, but this is just entirely wrong. You've been poorly influenced by working on a very bad translation. What we're doing with Dracu Riot is NOT the norm, and is not how the process should ideally go. A good translator, and all of the best translators currently in the scene, will write sensible english the first time around. An editor isn't supposed to seek out "lost meaning" or extract hidden nuance, that's actually the translator's job.

1) No one is better equipped to do so than the translator. They know what the line means in Japanese, how it's conveyed to the Japanese readers, and all of that. An editor doing so can misinterpret the line due to inadequate translation and lead things even further off-track. They need to keep in constant contact with the translator, further wasting the translator's time, and they could get the smaller things wrong that they aren't contacting the translator for.

2) Your method leads to an inefficient use of manpower. If the translator gets things right the first time around, an editor doesn't have to waste as much time deeply analyzing every single line for hidden nuance, and basically "retranslating" the script from engrish to english, further necessitating additional editing and proofreading passes due to the heavy amount of rewriting involved.

3) It's just freaking hard. There's just so much you have to think about with every single line about what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. When you read a sentence in english and wish to rewrite it in english again, you end up with preconceived notions about the message it's trying to convey that are sometimes difficult to eliminate. Basically what I'm saying is that it's really too much, and you're going to miss some things here and there. The translator doesn't experience this phenomenon as strongly due to going across languages, which leads back to point #1.

It's a pretty safe guess that almost all of the best translations you're most fond of don't go through this process. Their translators get things right the first time around because they're a fairly eloquent writer in English and are capable of putting out natural-sounding english language on their own. They still need editors because they don't have a perfect hit rate, and two heads are better than one, but the process goes so much more smoothly and turns out so much better when major rewrites aren't required on a regular basis.

[Mr Poltroon]

40 minutes ago, Decay said:

Noooo, nonono. I'm sorry, but this is just entirely wrong. You've been poorly influenced by working on a very bad translation. What we're doing with Dracu Riot is NOT the norm, and is not how the process should ideally go. A good translator, and all of the best translators currently in the scene, will write sensible english the first time around. An editor isn't supposed to seek out "lost meaning" or extract hidden nuance, that's actually the translator's job.

1) No one is better equipped to do so than the translator. They know what the line means in Japanese, how it's conveyed to the Japanese readers, and all of that. An editor doing so can misinterpret the line due to inadequate translation and lead things even further off-track. They need to keep in constant contact with the translator, further wasting the translator's time, and they could get the smaller things wrong that they aren't contacting the translator for.

2) Your method leads to an inefficient use of manpower. If the translator gets things right the first time around, an editor doesn't have to waste as much time deeply analyzing every single line for hidden nuance, and basically "retranslating" the script from engrish to english, further necessitating additional editing and proofreading passes due to the heavy amount of rewriting involved.

3) It's just freaking hard. There's just so much you have to think about with every single line about what makes sense, what doesn't make sense. When you read a sentence in english and wish to rewrite it in english again, you end up with preconceived notions about the message it's trying to convey that are sometimes difficult to eliminate. Basically what I'm saying is that it's really too much, and you're going to miss some things here and there. The translator doesn't experience this phenomenon as strongly due to going across languages, which leads back to point #1.

It's a pretty safe guess that almost all of the best translations you're most fond of don't go through this process. Their translators get things right the first time around because they're a fairly eloquent writer in English and are capable of putting out natural-sounding english language on their own. They still need editors because they don't have a perfect hit rate, and two heads are better than one, but the process goes so much more smoothly and turns out so much better when major rewrites aren't required on a regular basis.

I certainly understand how that would be better, and I don't object to it, but I still believe it's too much to ask from a translator, and not something I expect from translators.
Standards for translation have been changing as of late, so I'll concede that perhaps a simple translation of what's written does not pass for a proper translation anymore, but I'll remain in my personal belief that a literal translation is fine.

It suits me just fine and I'll gladly make use of the fact that I read what's written without caring about what's unnusual or not.

[Decay]

1 minute ago, Tiagofvarela said:

I certainly understand how that would be better, and I don't object to it, but I still believe it's too much to ask from a translator, and not something I expect from translators.

Maybe this is true in a fan translation where truly great talent is very hard to come by, but it is not at all acceptable in a professional translation.

[Mr Poltroon]

Just now, Decay said:

Maybe this is true in a fan translation where truly great talent is very hard to come by, but it is not at all acceptable in a professional translation.

I disagree. From my point of view, every single one of Fred's lines is fine. They convey what the Japanese was saying. I don't mind if they decide to edit it so it carries the same meaning in English as it was meant to carry to Japanese readers. That's totally fine, but not what I expect from the translator.

[Darbury]

19 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

I certainly understand how that would be better, and I don't object to it, but I still believe it's too much to ask from a translator, and not something I expect from translators.

It's not too much to ask.

After so many years spent living on scraps, we've just become accustomed to asking too little.

[Decay]

12 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:

I disagree. From my point of view, every single one of Fred's lines is fine. They convey what the Japanese was saying. I don't mind if they decide to edit it so it carries the same meaning in English as it was meant to carry to Japanese readers. That's totally fine, but not what I expect from the translator.

Then you aren't expecting enough, sorry.

[Mr Poltroon]

30 minutes ago, Decay said:

Then you aren't expecting enough, sorry.

You can't convince me that what you're asking for isn't a philosophy of editing.
From Japanese literature (although literature might be an overblown word for this) one would evidently expect Japanese expressions, speech patterns, traditions, odd sentence structure, unconventional comedic timing, cultural references, stupid tropes, and whatever other nonsense it brings with it. Adapting all of these for English audiences may be an editor's dream, but is not necessarily the reader's wish (See hamburgers in Ace Attorney and Ice Cream Machines in Doraemon). This why I believe translators should focus on what is written, and not on what is meant by what is written.

This isn't an on or off button, though. It's a sliding scale.

If every single Japanese term with no direct English equivalent remained untranslated, any English reader would be unable to follow what is going on. If you're looking to learn about Japanese culture, though, that might be just what you're looking for -- A literal translation filled with Translator Notes.
 

I'm exaggerating. Even I don't believe anybody would read (the vast majority) of visual novels to learn about Japanese culture. They might read it looking for Japanese traits and tropes in its writing, like the good old "can't be helped" and such, but that gets into a matter of audiences. For an all-encompassing English Translation of most Visual Novels, I'll agree with you guys. Your methods may be better for the English audience. Not necessarily the "English Audience who has persisted and developed a taste for literal translations", but for the overall English audience.

What I don't like, what I truly object to, is calling one method of translation inferior to the other. "Literal Translation's shouldn't be Official"; Like heck they shouldn't. I have no experience in translating from Japanese, but I sure know to translate from English into Portuguese, and it's most of the time easier to convey the meaning than just the words, which sometimes have no equivalent, without forming an incoherent sentence. Literal Translators are still professionals doing their best to make the sentences, odd as they may be, carry whatever meaning while keeping the Japanese structure, and I applaud them for that. It's sometimes easier to just change it and take liberties.
I find it unfair and wrong to boo down the literal side of the sliding scale as wrong flat-out. Don't say the translation is "bad", say the translation is "overly" literal, as in, too literal for my acquired tastes and expectations of English structures and expressions in sentences.

Just now, Darbury said:

It's not too much to ask.

After so many years of living on scraps, we've just become accustomed to asking too little.

As a direct reply, and this is as personal as it gets, everything else aside: What's wrong with that? I don't mind asking for too little, so long as I get said too little. It's good that I got used to it.

[Decay]

Yeah, sorry, I just cannot agree with you on any level here. Literal translations should be eradicated. If you prefer them, just learn Japanese to get the most literal translation of them all!

I'm not exaggerating.

[Yuuko]

So what is the editor's job if not to change "move your body" to "exercise" ...?

You are blaming the translator for his hasty choose of words (they do not have the time to choose perfect words) and not the editor for not changing it to more proper English (Isn't that his job?) ?

[Dark_blade64]

Well translation notes help to explain foreign words, places, cultural differences, but how in the world will people understand certain jokes who doesn't make sense unless you understand japanese?

[Darbury]

Literal translation: You go to the orchestra for some Mozart. The musicians come on stage and give you some Mozart, note-for-note, measure for measure, just as it's written in the sheet music. 

Expressive translation: You go to the orchestra for some Mozart. The musicians come on stage and begin playing some Mozart. But the conductor's fine-tuned the piece to account for the acoustics of the hall, the strengths and weaknesses of her players — who are her first chairs, her soloists? — and her understanding of how the music needs to flow. When should it swell? When should it whisper? What's it trying to say?

In both cases, you've heard a work by Mozart. But in only one, I'd suggest, have you been given the chance to experience it.

(Replace all the above with a Led Zep cover band if you'd like. I won't judge.)

[Darklord Rooke]

28 minutes ago, Darbury said:

In both cases, you've heard a work by Mozart. But in only one, I'd suggest, have you been given the chance to experience it.

Your post reminds me of the book ‘Maestro’ where a brilliant pianist named Keller kept criticising his student’s work xD

Quote

"Beautiful," my mother breathed.  "Don't you agree, Herr Keller?"

"An excellent forgery," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Technically perfect," he said.

He drained his wineglass before continuing.  It was to be his longest monologue of the evening:

"At such moments I always remember a forged painting I once saw.  Each violent brushstroke was reproduced with painstaking, non-violent care.  The forgery must have taken many many times longer than the original to complete.  It was technically better than the original."

He rose from his chair and walked a little unsteadily towards the door: "And yet something was missing.  Not much - but something."

At the door he paused, and turned: "And that small something may as well have been everything."

It’s much more pronounced with translations, because it involves 2 different languages whereas reproducing music involves only 1 language. So with a translation when someone accurately replicates language techniques in a literal way, thinking the effect will be the same, the loss can be much more pronounced. It’s part of what makes reading translations so interesting, though. Reading the different interpretations